American presidents have inspired artists since the days of George Washington, but Barack Obama’s historic, divisive presidency, along with the recent explosion of visual media, has given rise to what by all measures seems to be an unprecedented flood of artwork. As part of our special Obama Issue, we asked museums, curators, artists and art historians to help identify some of the most unique and interesting pieces of art depicting the 44th president, and picked our favorites. As Adrienne L. Childs writes in her Politico Magazine essay: “The project of imagining Obama has moved far beyond Shepard Fairey’s familiar red and blue ‘HOPE’ poster of candidate Obama to his likeness in nails, pennies, crayons and cereal; collages made of slave quilts and portraits of Obama’s predecessors; even art museum exhibitions dedicated to his depiction. A varied and expansive body of work, in other words, offering entirely new ways of envisioning an American president.”



All images are courtesy of the artists unless otherwise noted.