Obama Portraitists Chosen.


Kehinde Wiley speaking in a video created by the Brooklyn Museum for their New Republic exhibition. He is seated in a gallery surrounded by his paintings. (via Brooklyn Museum’s YouTube channel).

 

Artist Amy Sherald, left, with one of her paintings, right, “The Make Believer (Monet’s Garden)” (2016), oil on canvas, 54 x 43 inches. (Private Collection, Chicago). (all images courtesy the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago).

Next year two Obama portraits will be unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Today the Wall Street Journal announced who the artists responsible for those official images will be: Brooklyn-based Kehinde Wiley, and Baltimore-based Amy Sherald. Both American artists are known for their portraits of African-American individuals, and both demonstrate an emotional sensitivity to their subjects in their work.

Hyperallergic has the full story.

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