The Obamas Unveil First-Ever Official Dual Portrait
The Obama Foundation unveiled the first official dual portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama on Monday, June 15, commissioning Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby. The large-scale painting, The Obamas: Springing Forth (2026), uses Akunyili Crosby’s photo-transfer technique and will be displayed in the lobby of the $850 million Barack Obama Presidential Center, nicknamed the “Obamalisk,” alongside commissions by artists including Idris Khan and María Magdalena Campos-Pons. Based on a photograph Akunyili Crosby took herself, the work depicts Michelle Obama seated cross-legged in front of Barack Obama, who sits on a desk angled toward her, and incorporates references such as Michelle’s Chicago childhood home, a Charles Alston Martin Luther King, Jr. bust from the Oval Office, okra and coral hibiscus, the couple’s four combined Grammy wins for audiobook narration, and the 1963 March on Washington. The Presidential Center is scheduled to open to the public that Friday, timed to Juneteenth.
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This story was covered in War-Torn Heritage, Red-Hot Markets, Mega Portraits