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Former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle returned to the White House to unveil the official portrait.
The photos have a modern twist: he stands against a white background, expressionless, while she sits on a sofa in the red room, wearing a formal light blue dress.
“Barack and Michelle, welcome home,” President Joe Biden said before inviting the Obamas on stage to unveil the portraits.
Some people in the audience gasped, and some people applauded.
“It’s great to be back,” Obama said when it was his turn to speak. He praised Mr Biden — his vice president — for being a “true partner and true friend.”
The artist Barack Obama chose to paint his portrait says the “reduced” style of his work helps create an “encounter” between the person in the painting and the person looking at it.
Robert McCurdy likes to show his subjects without any facial expression, standing against a white background, which is how the 44th and first black president of the United States wore a black suit and gray tie.
Mr. Biden and First Lady Jill Biden invited Mr. Obama and the former first lady to return to their former home to unveil their official portraits.
It was Mrs. Obama’s first visit since her husband ended his presidency in January 2017. Obama himself visited in April to help celebrate the anniversary of the major health care law he signed.
The former first lady chose artist Sharon Sprung for her portrait.
In terms of style and content, these portraits are unlike any other portraits that will be added to the collection.
Mr McCurdy told the latest edition of the White House Historical Society’s Class of 1600 podcast that his style “is stripped away for a reason.”
He has also photographed portraits of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Jeff Bezos in the Amazon and the Dalai Lama, among others.
“They have plain white backgrounds, no one is gesturing, no one – no props, because we’re not here to tell the story of the people who sit for them,” Mr McCurdy said.
“We’re here to create an encounter between the audience and the nanny.”
He likens the technique to a meeting with a psychiatrist, in which the patient and doctor tell each other as little as possible about themselves “so you can project onto them.”
“We’re doing the same thing with these paintings,” Mr McCurdy said. “We told as little as possible about the babysitters so that the audience could project onto them.”
Mr. McCurdy selects images of his subjects from hundreds of photographs. He spends anywhere from a year to 18 months on each portrait, and says he knows “when it doesn’t annoy me anymore” he’s done.
Ms. Sprang, who was also interviewed on the podcast, described feeling like she was in a “comedy sketch” when she met the Obamas in the Oval Office.
She sank all the way to the couch she sat on as they sat in firmer chairs. The president then “flicked” the printed talking points she distributed to everyone in the room.
Then, when others in the meeting asked her why she was drawing, she just “stands still” and has to “take a breather.” Then she started crying.
“So who knows what makes the interview so important, but that’s how it works,” Ms Sprung said.
She had planned to have Mrs. Obama stand in the portrait “to give it a certain dignity,” but said the former first lady was “so dignified that I decided to sit and do it just because…it looked up to her too much. I’m much shorter than her.”
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