![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/obama-300x191.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe artist, he noted, depicted only the former president. There is no background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe is the centerpiece,\u201d McLaurin said. \u201cThe portrait of Mrs. Obama is a little bit different than that. It is a very colorful portrait. It highlights her sense of fashion and style. It is depicted in furniture that is easily recognizable from the White House collection. And so there\u2019s a fitting or a nod to a more traditional feel, but in\u2026 a style of painting that I think is also very suitable to her interest and her personality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McCurdy has a broad portfolio, having done portraits of the Dalai Lama, Toni Morrison, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nelson Mandela and Warren Buffett.
He is best known for oil paintings that look nearly like photographs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McCurdy said it usually takes him over a year to paint a portrait, and they start with many different actual photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is the speech that everybody gets when they sit for me: So to look directly into the lens. To not smile. Not gesture. And just hold into that moment, again where we\u2019re trying to extend time rather than slice it like a photograph. We\u2019re not looking for a gestural moment. We\u2019re looking for a more meditative or transcendent moment. So that\u2019s what we do,\u201d McCurdy told the White House Historical Association. \u201cThe setup is quite elaborate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Obama Hosts President Bush For Unveiling Of Official Portraits
Sprung, who began working as an artist at the age of 19, got started by reaching out to and eventually working with Aaron Shikler, who did the portraits of former first ladies Jacqueline Kennedy and Nancy Reagan as well as former President John Kennedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs that time passed and I got better, people would ask me to do their portrait rather than buy a painting of a different subject,\u201d Sprung said. \u201cThat was a great way to start, because then I knew that people wanted what I did, not what I could do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sprung is currently working on portraits of Patsy Mink, the first woman of color and Asian-American woman elected to Congress. Previously she did a portrait of Jeannette Rankin, another former representative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House Historical Association has organized the presidential portraits since the 1960s, and has since made it a goal to acquire portraits of all presidents and first ladies. These portraits of the Obamas, unlike those commissioned for the National Portrait Gallery and unveiled in 2018, will hang in the White House. According to the association, presidents and first ladies often select their artists before leaving the White House. But the process for completing the paintings can take years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2012, Obama invited George W. Bush and his wife Laura Bush to the White House for their unveilings. That event has gone down in history as a comedic affair, with Obama quipping that Bush left him a \u201creally good TV sports package\u201d and Bush dropping jokes about his painting. Bush noted that when the British burned the White House in 1814, Dolley Madison famously saved a portrait \u201cof the first George W.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow Michelle, if anything happens,\u201d Bush said, gesturing to his portrait, \u201cthere\u2019s your man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although McLaurin said the Obama portraits have been done for some undisclosed period of time, there is no specific protocol or instruction for the timing for the unveiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPerhaps the most classic example was the Kennedy portraits [which] were not revealed until the Nixon presidency, and even so they were done so quietly,\u201d said McLaurin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before Obama and Bush, Bush hosted the Clintons in 2004 and the Clintons hosted George H.W. and Barbara Bush in 1995, which has led some to believe the tradition was skipped during the Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Representatives for Obama and Trump did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trumps, however, have begun conversations with the White House Historical Association regarding their own portraits and an artist have been identified, according to McLaurin, though he is unsure where they are in the process of creating the portraits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat takes time. But it will happen eventually, just like they all do,\u201d said McLaurin. \u201cAnd at some point in time, they will be added to the White House collection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n