Obama says artist captured "everything I love about Michelle" in the portrait (2024)

Former President Barack Obama thanked the artists who created their White House portraits, noting that "it was important to find theright people to paint them."

He then went on to thank the artist who painted him, Robert McCurdy for"taking on a much more difficultsubject and doing a fantasticjob with mine."

"He captures every wrinkle onyour face, every crease in yourshirt.You'll note that he refused tohide any of my gray hairs.Refused my request to make myears smaller," he added.

Obama joked McCurdy "also talked me out of wearinga tan suit, by the way."

The former President noted that McCurdy's work "is so precise that atfirst glance it looks like aphotograph."

President Biden spoke on Wednesday of the close relationship he and his family shared with the Obamas throughout the the former President's two terms in office.

The President said, “I remember how youwere with me when our son waspassing, and I remember theeulogy you gave on his behalf.You'll never fully understandjust how much it meant to Jilland me and the entire family.”

Biden recalled the night he and Obama accepted the nomination for President and vice president in 2008.

“I always remember that night weaccepted the nomination inDenver.My granddaughter Finnegan, who is a greatfriend of your daughters, cameup to our room and said, Pop,can we, can we move the bedsout of my room? And I said, why do you want tomove the beds out of your room?She said well so, her two sisters, Malia and Sasha, we could allget sleeping begs and lie on thefloor and sleep together andwatch the convention on thefloor,” Biden said.

He continued, “That image of them all togetherwill stay with me forever, and Ithink it melded our families inways that it's hard for otherpeople to understand.”

Former President Barack Obama said that "it's good to be back" at the White House after the unveiling of his and Michelle Obama's White House portraits.

The former President reflected on his eight years working with then-Vice President Joe Biden, describing him as someone who "became a true partner and a true friend."

The former President took the time to thank his and Biden's former staffers during his remarks.

"To all the former Obama Bidenstaffers who are here in person,some of you are watching athome, thank you for being a partof this," he said in remarks from the East Room.

"When people ask me what I missmost about the white houseyears, it is not Air Force Onethat I talk about, although Imiss Air Force one.It's the chance that I had tostand shoulder to shoulder withall of you, to have a chance towitness so many talented,selfless, idealistic, goodpeople working tirelessly everyday to make the world better," Obama said.

CNN's Sam Fossum contributed reporting to this post.

President Biden opened his remarks at the ceremony by saying to the former President and first lady, "welcome home."

Quoting President John F. Kennedy, Biden said: "every Presidentmust endure the gap between whathe would like and what ispossible."

"He was right," Biden added. "The history books are full ofstories about presidents tryingto bridge that gap ... the difficult decisions,how the work is always seriousand often solemn."

He continued: "And all of that's true, but sois this, with Barack as ourPresident, we got up every dayand went to work full of hopefor real, full of purpose, andexcited about the possibilitybefore us."

Biden told Obama that "nothing couldhave prepared me better or moreto become president" than to "be at yourside for eight years, and I meanthat from the bottom of myheart."

When artist Robert McCurdy was taking the high-resolution photograph he would use to paint President Barack Obama's official portrait, he had some instructions: No smile, no gestures and look directly into the camera.

"We're not looking for a gestural moment," McCurdy said in an interview recently with the White House Historical Association, which acquires and funds official portraits of presidents and first ladies. "We're looking for a more meditative or transcendent moment."

Years later, those instructions have translated into a strikingly different style of official presidential painting. Set to be unveiled Wednesday in a ceremony in the East Room, the portrait of Obama is a photorealist picture of the former President set against a plain white background.

Wearing a black suit, white shirt and a light gray tie with his hands in his pockets, Obama looks out from the canvas at the viewer with an enigmatic expression. Nothing else disrupts the white background.

After the initial photo was taken from which McCurdy painted, the former President had no say in the final portrait, according to the artist.

"It is part of my process that the sitter doesn't get to say anything about how the painting looks. They're completely outside the process," he said. "He was open to that and accepting of that process, so he never saw the images that we worked from."

Former first lady Michelle Obama was equally hands off with her final portrait after posing for photographs with her portraitist, New York-based artist Sharon Sprung, in the White House.

"I felt this trust come from her, that you do your thing, I do my thing, I'm going to trust you with your thing, and I think portraiture works better sometimes like that. That she didn't contribute that much other than present herself," Sprung told the historical association.

Like her husband's, Michelle Obama's portrait is painted in a distinctive style that breaks a mold of the more traditional portraits hung in the White House. Wearing a powder blue off-the-shoulder gown, she sits on a sofa from the White House Red Room, posing against a terra-cotta backdrop. Like the former President, she stares directly out of the frame at the viewer.

The paintings are historic in another way: They capture the first Black president and first lady.

"They do look different. But I also don't think that it needs to be explained to people. I think people seem to get it," McCurdy said.

When the Obamas selected artists for earlier portraits hung at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, they selected Black painters who at that point were still emerging into the field.

Read more about the portraits here.

The unveiling ceremony for former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama's portraits has begun in the East Room of the White House.

It is the first time the Obamas have returned to the White House together since January 2017.

The pieces, which will hang inside the White House for decades to come, are the first official portraits added to the White House Collection since then-President Obama held an emotional, bipartisan unveiling ceremonyfor George W. Bush and Laura Bush in 2012.

The artists behind the Obamas' portraits areRobert McCurdy, who painted former President Barack Obama, andSharon Sprung, who painted first lady Michelle Obama.

Here's more background on both established artists:

McCurdy, whose signature is hyper-photorealistic paintings set against white backdrops, has painted Jeff Bezos, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Jane Goodall, among others.

Sprung has had a long career in figurative painting, including paintings for Congress, and has a connection to past-White House portraits: when she was younger, she developed an artistic relationship with Aaron Shikler, who painted iconic White House portraits of JFK, Jackie Kennedy and Nancy Reagan.

The process of selecting the artists began when the Obamas were still in the White House. Sprung interviewed with both Obamas in the Oval Office, bringing with her some drawings of Mrs. Obama. Thelma Golden, director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, sat in on Sprung's interview with the Obamas.

Former President Obama posed for a high-resolution photograph that McCurdy painted from. McCurdy takes about 100 photos, but paints from only one of them and destroys the other photos.

Of the photo session, McCurdy said Obama was "charming" and "very present." His instructions to the president were to "look directly into the lens" and not to smile or gesture.

After the initial photo was taken from which McCurdy painted, the former president had no say in the final portrait, according to the artist: “He was open to that and accepting of that process," he said in an interview with the White House Historical Association.

Michelle Obama was equally hands off with her final portrait after posing for Sprung in the White House Blue Room: "She didn't contribute that much other than present herself,” Sprungsaid.

McCurdy takes 12 to 18 months with each painting, and works exclusively on one painting at a time.

Sprung took 8 months to complete Michelle Obama's painting, and it was the longest she'd ever worked on one painting. She said the hardest part for her was the dress. "I knew it was done when she started to breathe."

Several top officials in the Obama administration returned to the White House on Wednesday for the official unveiling of the official portraits of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama.

Former White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, who served in the Obama administration from 2009 2017, was initially stuck waiting with the press after being escorted into the White House before being whisked in through another door.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA director John Brennan were spotted catching up over coffee at the Peet’s Coffee across the street from the White House ahead of the portrait unveiling.

The East Room of the White House has the feel of a family reunion — for Democrats, at least — as dozens of friends and aides from the Obama and Biden administration have taken their seats and are chatting loudly.

The covered portraits are at the front of the room, below paintings of George and Martha Washington.

Today’s event brings to mind the last presidential portrait unveiling ceremony at the White House, which took place a little more than a decade ago, when the Obamas invited the Bushes to the East Room. It was a rare bipartisan respite in the middle of Obama’s reelection campaign.

“Thank you so much for inviting our rowdy friends to my hanging,” former President George W. Bush said, giving a nod to several members of his Cabinet and staff who joined him in returning to the White House.

For his part, Obama praised Bush for his “extraordinary strength and resolve” after theSept. 11attacks. To lighten the moment, he added: “Plus, you also left me a really good TV sports package. I use it.”

Former President George H.W. Bush watched the festivities from the front row, laughing and smiling throughout the ceremony. It was a meeting of the so-called President’s Club – a partial one, at least – in an era of comity and respect for the exclusive fraternity of leaders.