Kehinde Wiley's Thiogo Oliveira do Rosario Rozendo

A few days ago was at the High Museum to see the official portraits of Michelle and Barack Obama. These portraits gave me another reason to go to the museum. Not that I need another reason to go to the museum. I go frequently.

 However, the experience of seeing them it's unique. First, these portraits are a promotion for the museum. These two portraits are on tour across the nation. The paintings have been to Chicago, Brooklyn, Los Angeles here in Atlanta. The tour ends next month in Houston. March is the month for the portraits to be in Atlanta. I was struck at how much of a draw these portraits are for the museums. It looks like these portraits are bringing many people here to the museum. Perhaps, people who otherwise would not go to the art museum.

Both of these portraits are by African-American artists. Kehinde Wiley created the image of President Obama, and Amy Sherald painted the picture of Michelle Obama. 

I noticed how the artist who painted President Obama also has another portrait at the High Museum. It's been there for years. I always saw the painting when I visited the museum. The piece I mentioned is a portrait of a young man. The artist Kehinde Wiley takes everyday people and gives them a type of high-status treatment in the paintings of his subjects. He takes images of the modern global black diaspora. He combines them with a style of classic European art, mixing the look of traditional/European art history with the aesthetics of today's black culture. He gives his subjects a sense of nobility and pride, uplifting them from the social marginalization in which they live. 

There is a vibrancy in the image heightened by an almost 3-D quality of his body in front of a pattern behind him. Each time I visited the museum and saw this image, I noticed how the young man seemed to float in front of the canvas. The image of President Obama has a similar quality with President Obama sitting in front of a wall of leaves. The portrait of Michelle Obama is a monochrome/grayscale image painted by Amy Sherald. I love these images.

On this visit to the museum, I thought about the people, myself included, who came to see these portraits of the President and First Lady. President Obama and Michelle Obama are world-famous. Many of us look up to them. We admired them. Yet, looking at the painting of the young man I thought about how all of us when given the right treatment, when we are seen from the right angle,  are as noble, as distinguished and as worthy as any king or queen.

Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of President Obama 

Amy Sherald’s portrait of Michelle Obama.