Obama, Michelle’s Official Portraits Spotlight Njideka Akunyili-Crosby’s Vision

When former U.S. President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama unveiled their first official portrait together for the Obama Presidential Center recently, they also cast a global spotlight on Nigerian-born artist, Njideka Akunyili-Crosby.

In a social media post announcing the portrait on Monday, Obama described Akunyili-Crosby as “a gifted Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist,” adding that the work “reflects so many chapters of Michelle and my story.”

“It was great joining Njideka Akunyili Crosby — a gifted Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist — to unveil our first portrait together. This piece reflects so many chapters of Michelle and my story, and we’re thrilled that it will be on display in the Hope and Change lobby at the Obama Presidential Center starting this Juneteenth,” the former US President wrote on his official X handle.

Michelle Obama also praised the artist’s contribution to the project. On her official X handle, she posted, “Barack and I were so honored to have @AkunyiliCrosby create our portrait for the Obama Presidential Center,” she wrote. “Her artistic brilliance shines through — and the way she infused such life and joy into the piece is truly extraordinary. We love it, and we think everyone who visits the Center will too!”

The portrait will be displayed in the Hope and Change lobby of the Obama Presidential Centre beginning on Juneteenth, according to Obama’s announcement.

Yet what makes the commission especially remarkable is that many of the qualities now being celebrated by the former First Couple were articulated by Akunyili-Crosby herself about a decade ago in an exclusive interview with Africa Interviews’ founder Sam Umukoro.

Long before receiving one of the most visible portrait commissions in America, Akunyili-Crosby spoke to Africa Interviews about identity, intimacy, memory and cultural complexity – themes that now sit at the heart of the Obama portrait.

The daughter of Nigeria’s late former Information Minister and NAFDAC Director-General Dora Akunyili, Akunyili-Crosby has built an internationally acclaimed career creating layered works that examine what it means to live between cultures.

In her exclusive 2015 Africa Interviews conversation, she described her work as an attempt to navigate multiple identities simultaneously.

“I think what it is is trying to negotiate both, trying to find the in-between space or the space where I can straddle both cultures,” Akunyili-Crosby told Africa Interviews. “It’s the story of contemporary Africans… How do we maintain identity as proud Nigerians but also integrate into the new society we find ourselves in?”

Born in Enugu and raised in Nigeria before moving to the United States, Akunyili-Crosby has become one of the world’s most celebrated contemporary artists by exploring precisely the kinds of layered identities that have also shaped Obama’s own global story.

Obama’s observation that the portrait reflects “so many chapters” of his and Michelle Obama’s life together also echoes ideas Akunyili-Crosby shared with Africa Interviews years earlier.

“For me it is painting what I know,” she said. “There is lot of intimacy in my work – it’s very central, very intimate… I want you to feel… it’s about trying to maybe envelope someone into a domestic space.”

Those remarks offer a striking explanation for Obama’s reaction to the portrait. Rather than focusing on politics or power, both the artist and the former president appear drawn to storytelling, memory and the intimate details that shape a life.

Michelle Obama’s praise for the “life and joy” infused into the portrait similarly resonates with Akunyili-Crosby’s reflections on the emotional foundation of her work.

“I relate that to when writers say write what you know, so for me it is painting what I know,” she told Africa Interviews.

“It is painting people I know and love and have known for years. It’s hard for me to make an intimate work if I’m making images of people I don’t know or care about. Making images of people I know and love and have known for years… helps push that for me.”

Those comments echo the qualities Michelle Obama identified in the portrait. It also highlighted another recurring theme from her Africa Interviews feature: the coexistence of different worlds, histories and experiences within a single work.

“My work exists on that,” she explained, referring to the experience of being both Nigerian and American. “I wanted to make work about all these differences existing side by side. It’s always about difference next to each other, and the jumps you make between those.”

That fascination with multiple identities existing side by side has become one of the defining characteristics of her work. It also helps explain why an artist whose practice is rooted in cultural complexity was a compelling choice to create a portrait of America’s first Black presidential couple.

The Obama commission is the latest milestone in a career that has steadily earned international recognition. In 2017, Akunyili-Crosby received the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the “Genius Grant,” awarded to individuals demonstrating exceptional creativity.

But years before that recognition, she was already articulating the ideas that continue to define her work.

“A lot of it is trying to put my finger on the Nigeria I grew up in,” she told Africa Interviews. “Thinking of Nigeria in the mid-eighties, early nineties, I’m thinking of the change from that to the Nigeria of now.”

Today, as visitors prepare to view the Obama portrait at the Presidential Centre, Akunyili-Crosby’s comments in her exclusive Africa Interviews conversation offer insight into the work. The qualities praised by Barack and Michelle Obama – storytelling, intimacy, life and joy – are themes the artist discussed years earlier.