Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of former U.S. President Barack Obama is the first representation of an African American and the first painting by an African American in the presidential portrait collection of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. Although the composition recalls earlier presidential portraits, with Obama wearing a traditional black suit and sitting on a conventional mahogany chair, Wiley has taken him out of a traditional setting, such as an office, and placed him against an exuberant pattern of leafy greens and flowers symbolizing Kenya, Hawaii, and Chicago.
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