Former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle returned to the White House on Wednesday for the unveiling of official portraits with a modern vibe: he stands expressionless against a white background and she sits on a sofa in the Red Room wearing a formal blue dress. . “Barack and Michelle, welcome home,” President Joe Biden said before calling the Obamas on stage to unveil the portraits. Some in the audience gasped, others applauded. “It’s great to be back,” Obama said when it was his turn to speak. He praised Biden — his running mate — as someone who became a “true partner and a true friend.” The artist chosen by Barack Obama to paint his portrait says the “stripped down” style of his works helps create an “encounter” between the person in the painting and the person looking at it. Robert McCurdy likes to show his subjects without facial expression and standing against a white background, so America’s 44th and first black president will be seen here for posterity, in a black suit and gray tie. Biden and first lady Jill Biden invited Obama and the former first lady back to their former home to unveil their official portraits. It was Mrs. Obama’s first visit since her husband’s presidency ended in January 2017. Obama himself visited in April to help celebrate the anniversary of the major health care law he signed. The former first lady chose artist Sharon Sprung for her portrait. The portraits are unlike any other in the collection to which they will be added, in style and substance. “They have a plain white background, nobody’s gesturing, nobody — there’s no props because we’re not here to tell the story of the person sitting on them,” McCurdy said. “We are here to create an encounter between the viewer and the guide.” He compared the technique to a session with a psychiatrist in which the patient and doctor tell each other as little as possible about themselves “so you can project onto them.” “And we’re doing the same thing with these paintings,” McCurdy said. “We talk as little as possible about the sitter so the viewer can project onto him.” McCurdy works from a photograph of his subjects, selected from hundreds of images. He spends anywhere from a year to 18 months on each portrait and said he knows it’s done “when it stops pissing me off.” Sprung, who was also interviewed for the podcast, described feeling like she was in a “comedy sketch” when she met with the Obamas in the Oval Office. He continued to sink into the couch he was sitting on while they sat on sturdier chairs. The chair then “threw out” the printed talking points she had distributed to everyone in the room. Then she just “stood still” and had to “gasp a little” when someone else at the meeting asked her why she was drawing. Then she started crying. “So who knows what put the interview over the top, but that’s how it went,” Sprung said. He had planned to have Mrs. Obama standing in the portrait, “to give it some dignity,” but said the former first lady “has so much dignity that I decided to do it sitting just because … it looked too much. On it. I’m much shorter than her.” Sprung worked on the portrait for eight months, day and night, the most time she has ever spent on a single painting. He worked entirely from photographs taken at various locations on the State Floor of the White House. Getting the dress just right was the hardest part, she said. “The color was so beautiful, and I really wanted to capture the power of color and light,” said Sprung, who has done portraits of the late Rep. Patsy Mink, D-Hawaii, and first lady Jeannette Rankin of Montana. was elected to Congress. Recent tradition, regardless of political persuasion, has had the current president graciously host his immediate predecessor for the unveiling — as Bill Clinton did for George W. Bush, George W. Bush for Clinton, and Obama for the younger Bush. Donald Trump, who has criticized almost everything about Obama and deviated from many presidential traditions, held no ceremony for Obama. So Biden, who was Obama’s vice president, planned one for his former boss. Obama’s portrait is intended to be displayed in the Grand Foyer of the White House, the traditional showcase for paintings of the two most recent presidents. Portraits of Clinton and George W. Bush currently hang there. Mrs. Obama’s portrait will likely be placed with her predecessors along the White House’s ground-floor hallway, joining Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush. Both McCurdy and Sprung said it was difficult to keep their portrait work a secret. McCurdy said it wouldn’t have been a problem “if it hadn’t gone on for so long.” Sprung said she had to turn the portrait on the wall every time someone came to her studio in New York. The White House Historical Association, a nonprofit funded by private donations and sales of books and an annual Christmas ornament, helps manage the portrait process and, since the 1960s, has paid for most of those in the collection. Congress purchased the first painting in the collection, by George Washington. Other portraits of first presidents and first ladies often came to the White House as gifts.
