The first official portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama — a large, detailed artwork that includes images of the significant moments, objects and places in their lives — was unveiled this week at the Obama Presidential Center.
The framed 9-by-10 foot work by artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby features Barack Obama clad in a dark suit and informally seated on a table. Michelle Obama, wearing a deep blue dress, sits in a chair next to him.
The couple is surrounded — and their clothes partially covered — by a tapestry of at least 500 images from throughout their lives, including one of a young Michelle Robinson posed against her father Fraser C. Robinson’s “duece and a quarter”: a prized bronze 1970 Buick Electra 225 coupe.
“I was thinking of a composition that would not preference one [Obama] over the other but to treat them equally,” Akunyili Crosby said. “It’s like, ‘Yes, he was the president and she is this incredible, powerful, amazing, super-respected person.’ They are like equal.”
The work hangs in the voluminous entry lobby of the center’s Museum Tower, and visitors can view it without paying admission, once the complex officially opens Friday.
The Obamas saw “Springing Forth” for the first time Sunday and chatted with Akunyili Crosby, during a visit to the presidential center.
“It’s us,” Michelle Obama said as she viewed the work, as seen in a video of the visit made public by the Obama Foundation. “And all of the stories within the story.”
“It looks fantastic,” the former president said, although he did joke about the composition showing his hair gray. “The real question is, how come you didn’t dye my hair in the photo? You know, don’t they usually touch it up a little bit?”
“I thought about this,” Akunyili Crosby said.
Akunyili Crosby and her team of five — which expanded to eight as the project reached its deadline — used acrylics, colored pencils, charcoal and photos that were transferred paper through a printmaking technique, to create “Springing Forth.”
“I print out pictures, just with like a regular office printer,” the Nigerian-born, Los Angeles artist said. “Then I take the picture I want to transfer … I put it face down on my work and then I put a brush in acetone and I rub the back of the printed paper. I’m really pushing down; so it’s a really physical process. The acetone breaks the binding of the pigment from the printer, and … the printer pigment kind of gets forced into the paper [and] the photo has transferred onto this other surface.”
Akunyili Crosby said she and her crew selected from at least 3,000 printed images of the Obamas’ lives to create the work. Her studio manager, Andre Keichian, photographed the Obamas.
The images include childhood and family photos and pictures that show details of the Obama Oval Office. Michelle Obama’s childhood South Shore home can be seen behind them in “Springing Forth”, as is the cover of the first record album she received: Steve Wonder’s 1972 “Talking Book.”
Akunyili Crosby said she and her team spent countless hours reviewing podcasts, interviews and books by the Obamas to figure out what images were important.
“As I was populating the composition … I [would] actually count to make sure that all the references were not of him or of her,” she said. “It really is about two of them.”
The work shows the couple sitting in a room based on the Oval Office as it was under Obama — the window and the maroon drapery is a nod to it — she said. The flora surrounding them represents plants found in Chicago, Kenya, Hawaii and other places the Obamas have lived individually or together.
“Springing Forth” is the last of 28 major art pieces to be installed at the 19-acre, $850 million presidential center. Other work includes creations by María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Nekisha Durrett, Theaster Gates, Richard Hunt, Maya Lin, Martin Puryear, Alison Saar and Carrie Mae Weems.
Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett said the Obamas “spent a good bit of time just studying and discovering” Akunyili Crosby’s work during their visit.
She suspects visitors will do the same.
“It’s the kind of thing where we’re now concerned that the location that it’s in is going to create a log jam,” she said. “Because once you start looking, it’s very hard to stop.”