Obama wit on show as portraits unveiled
UNITED STATES: When Barack Obama speaks, people listen. At least they did when he was in the White House. But that kind of authority didn’t hold much sway when it came time for his presidential portrait.
At a ceremony yesterday to unveil portraits of him and former first lady Michelle Obama, the former US president said artist Kehinde Wiley cheerfully ignored almost all of his suggestions.
‘‘He listened very thoughtfully to what I had to say before doing exactly what he always intended to do,’' he said. ``I tried to negotiate less grey hair, but Kehinde’s artistic integrity would not allow it. I tried to negotiate smaller ears, and struck out on that as well.’'
The final product depicts Obama sitting in a straight-backed chair, leaning forward and looking serious while surrounded by greenery and flowers. Michelle Obama’s portrait, painted by Amy Sherald, shows her in a black and white dress, looking thoughtful with her hand on her chin.
Both artists were chosen by the Obamas.
The portraits will hang in the National Portrait Gallery. The gallery has a complete collection of presidential portraits. A different set of portraits of the former first couple will eventually hang in the White House.
‘‘I am humbled, I am honoured, I am proud,’' Michelle Obama said. ‘‘Young people, particularly girls and girls of colour, in future years they will come to this place and see someone who looks like them hanging on the walls of this incredible institution.’'
Barack Obama spoke of his choice of Wiley, saying the two men shared multiple parallels in their upbringing; both had African fathers who were largely absent from their lives, and American mothers who raised them.
The former president drew multiple laughs from the audience for his remarks, starting out by praising Sherald for capturing ‘‘the grace and beauty and charm and hotness of the woman that I love’'.
Wiley said the depiction of Obama surrounded by greenery and flowers was meant to ‘‘chart his path on earth’' through the choice of flowers.
The painting includes chrysanthemums, which are the official flower of Chicago; jasmine to evoke Hawaii, where Obama largely grew up; and African blue lilies to honour Obama’s Kenyan father. – AP Spies.
The exchange was made at the Koidula border crossing, with Raivo Susi, an Estonian businessman, and Artem Zinchenko, a Russian citizen, escorted to the centre of a bridge over the Piusa river separating the two countries.
Tensions between Estonia, a former Soviet republic but now a member of Nato, and Russia have been high since President Vladimir Putin ordered the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.
Susi, who worked in aviation, was arrested at a Moscow airport two years ago and accused of spying in Russia from 2004 to 2007. He was sentenced last year to 12 years in a penal colony.
Zinchenko was convicted last year by a court in Tallinn of gathering information on Estonian defence installations on behalf of the Russian GRU military intelligence. He was sentenced to five years in jail.