The recent official portrait is not the first of Obama by Kehinde Wiley. I’ve always been a fan of the artist, so working at TIME as a consultant
on the covers, when it was clear that Obama would be the 2008 Person of the
Year, Wiley was at the top of my list. He was ultimately edged out by Shepard Fairey, whose iconic Obama poster made him the logical first choice. In those
golden days of TIME, we often commissioned several artists for a single cover—in
case, for one reason or another, something didn’t work out. The original
artworks of those that did run were ultimately donated to the National Portrait
Gallery of the Smithsonian, where Wiley’s most recent portrait will also end
up.
