Obama Nationwide Portraits Coming to San Francisco

And just in time for Juneteenth, too

Visitors view the official portrait of former president Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley at The Art Institute of Chicago on June 18, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago is the first stop of the The Obama Portraits Tour, organized by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and running from June 2021 through May 2022. Other scheduled stops on the tour include New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Houston. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

I vividly remember when Barack and Michelle Obama’s official painted portraits — Barack so gorgeously painted by artist Kehinde Wiley, and Michelle’s brushed ode a work produced by Amy Sherald — were unveiled to the public at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC back in 2018. The verdant backdrop of neon-green leaves and bright pastels juxtaposed to an otherwise stern-faced Barack Obama in the foreground, a poignant metaphor for how he balanced his precious benevolence with lawmaking. Michelle Obama’s painting shows her in a floor-length gown that seems to go on for miles; like a spring rainbow over Telegraph Hill; her naked arms stand as a nod to her “defiant and bold” choice to be the only First Lady to have her arms uncovered in their official White House portrait photograph.

The two pieces of artwork drew equal parts praise and criticism; celebration and backlash. But no matter what you might think of the paintings themselves, you’ll soon have a chance to see them IRL at the de Young Museum now that the “The Obama Portraits Tour” event has added new touring dates which will include stops in San Francisco and Boston.

As part of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery-organized event, “The Obama Portraits Tour” will see the two aforementioned paintings on display at the de Young Museum from June 18 through August 14.

Also: Both paintings will be accessible for free on Saturdays when the museum’s permanent collection wings open without charge to residents of the nine Bay Area counties later this year. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco — the entity behind the Young Museum — will also host a video that will discuss the portraits, which will also be screened on the second floor and lower levels of the culture space.

The pair of “groundbreaking” portraits — Michelle’s painting is the first created and painted by a Black woman, no less — trade traditional, Colonial-era painting methods for more urban contemporary stylings, which made for two bodies of work unlike any others seen in official presidential portraits.

“Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of former President Barack Obama and Amy Sherald’s portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama are groundbreaking American portraits that speak to the sense of hope and possibility that the Obamas inspire,” remarked Tom Campbell, Director, and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in a press release. It’s been noted before that two artists also worked independently from each other; both Wiley and Sheerald, too, consulted with their subjects and used a collection of photographs of them as working tools as they went about planning their individual compositions.

The result? Two near-life-sized expressions of glowing creativity that speak to Michelle and Barack’s cultural and political impact on humankind, all while pedestalling a certain universality to their presence that has become synonymous with any mention of their names.

“Both Wiley and Sherald are artists who work within the genre of Western portraiture painting, while actively expanding, and critical artistic conventions that have traditionally defined representations of power,” says Campbel in closing. “We are thrilled that Bay Area audiences will have the opportunity to experience these powerful, iconic paintings in person at the de Young museum.”

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Suffice to say we’re very thrilled and very excited to see these two society significant portraits when they do come to the seven-by-seven this summer.