06/16/2026
BREAKING: The first official portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama together has been unveiled and it's absolutely stunning.
Look closely at the tiny components of this piece...
"Tradition is not untouchable. We can own it, we can shape it, we can move it the way we need," Nigerian-born artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby told Harper's Bazaar.
The artwork is one of 28 pieces that have been commissioned for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, which opens later this week on Juneteenth.
Harper's explained that Akunyili Crosby’s masterpieces are "technically complex" and while they are designed to "resemble conventional figurative paintings at a distance" they are actually "composed of dense layers of embedded images, in something like a visual archive."
If you look, you should be able to spot a volume of the Harvard Law Review that was published while Barack Obama was the journal's first Black President. You'll also spot Stevie Wonder's "Talking Book," which was the first album that the former First Lady ever owned.
“Yes, he was the President. But she is incredible," said Akunyili Crosby.
“Nostalgia for the past is always a dicey thing. But that does not mean it wasn’t important for me to kind of touch upon the feelings we all had—and the hope," the artist added.
Now, more than ever, we miss the days when we had a dignified, compassionate, intelligent First Couple.
What can you spot in the portrait?
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