White House Selects Art to Grace Private Residence, Offices

The Washington Post ^ | October 6, 2009 | Jacqueline Trescott

[Baladas]

The White House on Tuesday released a list of 45 artworks that first lady Michelle Obama, working with curators from the White House and area museums, has selected for the private residence, the offices in the West Wing and East Wing. They are all loans, the White House said.

The choices, which provide the first inkling of the Obamas' artistic taste, are not a survey of American or European art but concentrate mainly on artists who are well known and mainstream. In the residence, for example, are 11 pieces by George Catlin, the American 19th-century painter who specialized in Native American scenes. There are also three works by Josef Albers, the German-born American artist who fled Germany when Hitler closed down the Bauhaus art school; he went on to paint seminal "square" abstractions that were hugely influential on American abstraction. Also acquired are four pieces by William H. Johnson, the 20th-century African American artist whose work ranged from vivid landscapes to scenes of ordinary people.

In addition, the Oval Office is now home to a patent model of Samuel F. B. Morse's telegraph, on loan from the National Museum of American History, as well as several examples of Native American pottery.

The inclusion of almost a dozen pieces by Catlin is sure to reopen the debate that always accompanies his work, namely whether it was a sincere homage to the Native American or a touristy view.

[Nathan Zachary]

"Michelle knows every bit as much about art as this redneck does about space shuttle piloting............

Michelle 'linebacker' Obama knows about as much about art as she does about fashion.

[dusttoyou]

What happened to the nice portrait of Buckwheat?

Well I guess this will be like the klintoons raiding all the stuff from the Whitehouse...... along with our gold with them to Kenya.