Groundbreaking Obama portraits will tour five cities
MFAH to host exhibition in 2022 featuring paintings of the president and first lady
Interest in the National Portrait Gallery’s portraits of former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama has not let up since the paintings were unveiled in February 2018.
They remain so popular, in fact, the museum will send them on a five-city tour in 2021 and 2022 as part of an effort to extend its profile across the country and reach millions of Americans who can’t visit Washington, D.C. (The National Portrait Gallery is part of the Smithsonian
Institution.)
The tour opens at the Art Institute of Chicago on June 18, 2021, then travels to the Brooklyn Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta before ending at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston March 25May 30, 2022.
For more immediate gratification, there’s a read coming. On Feb. 11, Princeton University Press will publish “The Obama Portraits” ($24, 152 pp.) a purposefully affordable, modestly sized book that explores the creation and impact of the paintings.
The works are historic on multiple levels: Artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald are the first African American artists commissioned to create portraits of a president and first lady for the National Portrait Gallery’s collection. The paintings also speak to the history of art, breaking the mold of what a presidential portrait should look like.
“We believe portraiture is powerful,” said National Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet. “Portraits are about art and history, biography and identity, which come together to create culture.”
In the relatively short time
since the Obama portraits were unveiled, the paintings have provided a new window for thinking about the nation’s principles, rules and values, along with conversations about Confederate monuments and the role of women in government, Sajet said. They arrived
“like a perfect storm” during conversations about representation in museums, she added. “Representation does matter. The history of portraiture has been very elitist …. These portraits acknowledge that America is changing.”
The Smithsonian is nonpartisan, and the portraits exemplify the spirit of the nation’s motto, “E pluribus unum (Out of many, one),” Sajet said. “We need to include all types of people, all stories, in our history.”
She had no trouble finding collaborators for the tour. “The easiest calls I’ve ever made to my peers,” she said. The tour doesn’t start until next year because Sherald’s portrait of Michelle Obama is part of a show featuring portraits of first ladies opening this fall at the National Gallery. Each hosting museum will have the freedom to display the two Obama portraits in a context that makes sense for their visitors, either alone or as anchors for larger exhibitions.
MFAH director Gary Tinterow didn’t hesitate.
“We’re tremendously excited to be able to show the historic pictures,” he said. “It’s amazing how quickly history happens. The Obama years seem like ancient history now.” By the time the paintings come to Houston, another election will have passed. “It will be fascinating to reflect on the Obama legacy,” he added. “They’re also fantastic pictures.”