Obama Portrait Artists: Kehinde Wiley

Credit: LL Cool J by Kehinde Wiley, oil on canvas, 2005. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; on loan from LL Cool J © Kehinde Wiley
October 16, 2017
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LL Cool J
Credit: LL Cool J by Kehinde Wiley, oil on canvas, 2005. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; on loan from LL Cool J © Kehinde Wiley

This colorful painting of the rap star and actor LL Cool J by Kehinde Wiley is based on a 1917 portrait of John D. Rockefeller by John Singer Sargent. Wiley’s painting was commissioned by the VH1 Hip Hop Honors program in September 2005 and is currently on display in the Portrait Gallery’s permanent exhibition “20th Century Americans,” where it is on long-term loan.

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