When the public sees these portraits and takes into account the aesthetic sensibilities and embodied sentience of the President and First Lady, one soon realizes that Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald have, in effect, chronicled a cultural shift, a perceptual about face not considerably different than, say, the geographically and culturally diverse scenes of America that appear on the antebellum era French wallpaper in the White House’s frequently photographed Diplomatic Reception Room. Images of the President and First Lady posing alongside the Zuber et Cie wallpaper’s assorted images of elegantly dressed black Americans, circa 1834, indicate the Obamas’ cognizance of their own emblematic roles almost a century beyond these White House decorations.
“The Obama Portraits, in Art History and Beyond,” in The Obama Portraits, with Taína Caragol, Dorothy Moss, and Kim Sajet (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020), 50-78.
