The Obama Presidential Center is set to open its doors soon, and it’s doing so with a bang! A new official portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama has been unveiled. 

Njideka Akunyili Crosby is the artist behind the stunning portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama together, and it was unveiled today ahead of the center’s public opening on Juneteenth in Chicago. The painting, commissioned for the center’s main lobby, is part of a broader art program meant to frame the Obamas’ legacy through culture as much as politics.

The portrait, titled “The Obamas: Springing Forth,” places the former president and first lady side by side in a composed, intimate scene. It’s also the first official painted portrait of the couple together. In a statement, the intent is to memorialize “their journey to the White House while honoring their legacy for generations to come.”

Though make no mistake, it’s not an homage to the past. The artist depicted both as they look today; even Barack jokingly commented on his silver hair in the portrait. “My only real question is, how come you didn't dye my hair in the photo?” he said with a laugh.

In a recent interview with Harper's Bazaar, the 43-year-old Nigerian-born, Los Angeles–based Akunyili Crosby said, “Nostalgia for the past is always a dicey thing,” she says. “But that does not mean it wasn’t important for me to kind of touch upon the feelings we all had—and the hope.”

And hopeful it is: various significant symbols and historic references tied to the Obamas are woven into the painting for viewers to discover themselves. Among them: 

• Mrs. Obama’s childhood home on Euclid Ave., with her father’s beloved 1970 bronze, 2-door Buick Electra 225 hardtop coupe. 
• The Martin Luther King, Jr. bust by the Harlem Renaissance artist Charles Alston, which was displayed in the Oval Office during the Obama administration
• An array of significant items on the bookshelf, including the Obamas’ four Grammys, a framed photograph from the March on Washington, a basketball, books they love and books they have authored, and numerous others.

The work is one of 30 original pieces commissioned for the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side, which is set to open to the public on Juneteenth after a dedication ceremony on June 18. The center’s art program includes a wide range of artists and installations meant to connect history, identity, and civic life.

Akunyili Crosby spent months researching before starting the painting, studying books, speeches, podcast episodes, and thousands of images of the couple. She drew on portrait traditions while updating them with her own layered style, using collage-like details and symbolic objects from the Obamas’ lives. In the finished image, Barack Obama leans casually on a desk while Michelle Obama sits in the foreground, a pose the artist said was designed to show equality as well as distinction.

The piece also reflects the Obama Foundation’s larger vision for the center as a public space where art is not decorative filler but part of the message. Other commissioned works across the campus are intended to speak to memory, community, and the rich Black cultural history of Chicago.