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Barack Obama, born 1961
Forty-fourth president, 2009–17
In 2008, Barack Obama made history when he was elected as the first African American president, capping a meteoric rise in Illinois, and then national, politics. His election was taken as evidence of increasing racial tolerance in the United States. Programmatically, Obama had a series of very difficult challenges, ranging from health care to the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Domestically, Obama managed a sagging economy while also enacting the Affordable Care Act. In foreign policy, he oversaw the drawdown of American troops in combat zones. Yet the issue of race remained combustible as the political culture began to fracture at the end of his second term.
Chuck Close's double portraits of President Obama are woodburytypes -- a photomechanical printing process that results in a slight relief of the image. Close intended these to function as a pair, and the close-up framing, elimination of background, and dramatic lighting allow us to engage the subject eye to eye.
Chuck Close, 2013 |