Njideka Akunyili Crosby Brings the Obamas Closer to Home

The unveiling of her portrait of Barack and Michelle Obama at the Obama Presidential Center marks another significant milestone in the ascent of Njideka Akunyili Crosby, one of the most acclaimed artists of her generation. Okechukwu Uwaezuoke writes 

Before her “Bush Babies” drew global attention with its near-$3.4 million sale at Christie’s in 2018, Njideka Akunyili Crosby was scarcely known outside specialist art circles. Born in Enugu, she moved to the US at 16 with her sister, Ijeoma, after her family secured a visa through the lottery programme, and was still working in relative obscurity. The sale marked a turning point. Almost overnight, she emerged from the anonymity of the studio onto the global stage, her name  among a new generation of boundary-pushing Nigerian diaspora artists.

Eight years on, the Yale University School of Art MFA graduate returned to international attention. In April, she was announced as one of the artists commissioned by the Obama Foundation to produce a site-specific work for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, which opened on June 19. Her contribution is a portrait of former US President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, prominently displayed in the museum’s main lobby.

Located on Chicago’s South Side, the Obama Presidential Center is intended to be much more than a museum or library. Designed as a civic and educational space, it chronicles the legacy of America’s first Black president while encouraging public engagement with the ideals and aspirations that animated his rise to office.

For Akunyili Crosby, the commission marks another milestone in a career defined by steady ascent and critical acclaim. Yet there is something especially resonant for followers of the Nigerian art scene about the choice. That a Nigerian-born artist raised in Enugu was entrusted with portraying one of the most recognisable couples of the 21st century for an institution dedicated to preserving a chapter of American history is no small achievement.

The assignment also plays to her strengths. Throughout her career, Akunyili Crosby has demonstrated a rare ability to combine the personal and the political, weaving memory, identity and cultural history into works that feel both intimate and expansive. Her portrait of the Obamas reflects that sensibility. Rather than presenting them as distant historical figures, it captures them with a warmth and humanity that cut through the layers of symbolism that have accumulated around them over the years.

The result is a work that feels less concerned with mythmaking than with presence. The Obamas may have become global icons, but in Akunyili Crosby’s hands they remain recognisably human—two people whose story continues to resonate far beyond the political moment that first brought them to prominence.

Surely, the Obama commission ranks among the many milestones that have punctuated Akunyili Crosby’s remarkable career. In 2016, she was named among the Financial Times Women of the Year. A year later came the MacArthur Fellowship—popularly known as the “Genius Grant”—one of the most prestigious fellowships in the United States. There followed a major mural for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2018 and, in 2023, an exhibition at David Zwirner’s Los Angeles gallery that revisited and reimagined aspects of Nigerian life and culture.

Yet this commission carries a significance beyond the usual hallmarks of professional success. It brings together trajectories that began far apart—Enugu and Chicago: a Nigerian family that seized an opportunity offered by a visa lottery programme, and a political family that came to embody the aspirations of many Americans. The parallel is striking, even if its meaning is not easily pinned down.

This achievement inevitably calls to mind the artist’s late mother, Dora Akunyili. As Director-General of NAFDAC, she led a sustained campaign against counterfeit drugs that made her one of the most widely respected public servants in Nigeria’s recent history. Her work became associated with a form of public service defined by visibility and resolve in the face of entrenched interests. Even after her death, her name still carries a strong sense of public trust.

But it would be simplistic to attribute Akunyili Crosby’s accomplishments solely to parental influence. Her success is the result of talent, discipline, and years of sustained artistic work. Still, it is difficult to overlook the example set by her parents. Dora and Chike Akunyili, in different ways, embodied a seriousness of purpose that appears to have shaped the lives of their children.

For many Nigerians, there is something deeply gratifying about seeing Akunyili Crosby’s work occupy such a prominent place in an institution of global significance. Not because it satisfies some narrow appetite for national validation, but because it serves as another reminder that Nigerian stories, experiences and perspectives continue to find expression on the world’s biggest stages.

The unveiling of the portrait adds another chapter to a career that has steadily expanded its reach without losing sight of its origins. From Enugu to Chicago, Akunyili Crosby has built a body of work that moves comfortably between personal memory and public history. The Obama portrait is the latest reminder that those worlds are often closer than they appear.