Rick Brettell is the founding director of the Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas and a former director of the Dallas Museum of Art.
Posted on 02/15/2018 6:59:45 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
The U.S. was rather late in establishing a National Portrait Gallery - and in creating the conditions for commissioning official portraits of presidents and first ladies.
There is little doubt that the Obamas were the most stylish and sophisticated first couple since the Kennedys and, as powerful individuals in their respective roles, the Obamas elected to each choose a different painter, thus breaking the tradition of commissioning official portraits from one - always white and always male - artist.
But nothing is typical about the Obamas. They were the first African-American couple in the White House, and nothing is typical about their portraits. The Obamas selected artists of African descent, and each selected an artist of their same gender.
Amy Sherald portrayed Michelle Obama, making Sherald the first female artist of any race in the history of official portraits. If any official presidential portraits are "politically correct," it is there.
The portraits are by artists widely recognized in the art world - a far cry from the conventional painters favored by earlier presidents and their wives. Even the savvy Jacqueline Kennedy chose the competent, but unremarkable, society portrait painter Aaron Shikler, who also painted Nancy Reagan, and no art critic or art historian worth his or her salt would ever consider writing about those thoroughly unexceptional, if conventionally beautiful, portraits.
The portraits are decidedly unlike the staid official likenesses of their predecessors, George W. and Laura Bush — and indeed, unlike any others to hang in the National Portrait Gallery. They represent two powerful and important individuals against invented backdrops with little suggestion of place. They call out for us to reconsider Michelle and Barack Obama not as powerful figures, but as individuals in American society.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Rick Brettell is the founding director of the Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas and a former director of the Dallas Museum of Art.
You omitted “barf alert” in the title?
Being racist to the core, Obama selected an artist for his color rather than his ability as a colorist.
They only thing they’re “inviting” is ridicule.
One is Semen on Head.
The other is Bears No Resemblance.
LOL!
Balderdash!
There is little doubt that this self-so-called "art critic" is a communist; everything he says is anti-American propaganda.
The Congressional Black Caucus suppressed this pic of then state Sen Obama with Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan.
Farrakhan on white people: “The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the late of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for 400 years.” -Louis Farrakhan
BULL SHIT
It's too late for me! Save yourselves!!!!
Wonder fanboy wrote this before or after wiping his chin ?
Stopped reading right there............................
ROTFL. That crap looks more like graffiti than art to me. JMO. Should be on the side of a building, not in a presidential portrait gallery.
There is little doubt that this purveyor of faux art, this human without any judgment - let along artistic judgment, is fully in the tank for his benefactors Mr and Mrs Zero and playing his highfalutin audience for fools.
Hahahaha
LOL!
There is little doubt that the Obamas were the most stylish and sophisticated first couple since the Kennedys...
“There is little doubt that the Obamas were the most stylish and sophisticated first couple since the Kennedys and, as powerful individuals in their respective roles, the Obamas elected to each choose a different painter, thus breaking the tradition of commissioning official portraits from one - always white and always male - artist.”
I just can’t read any more.
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