20/10/2025
Thank you Ignacio Ortega: ”From time to time, I love discovering stories like this. While I knew of ‘s role as the and White House interior designer, I had never deeply explored how he help make up the White House’s art collection. Featured in “In Designing History” book.
One striking image shows President Obama taking a call beneath Susan Rothenberg’s Butterfly (1976), a bold and dynamic piece. In the Family Sitting Room, Sean Scully’s vibrant ONEONEZERONINE RED, on loan from the National Gallery of Art, is displayed against a wall clad in rush-cloth wallpaper by Crezana.
The Second Floor Center Hall features Hans Hofmann’s Staccato in Blue and Sam Francis’s White Line, both from the National Gallery of Art, arranged alongside 1960s-style upholstery, antiques, and a midcentury coffee table. Included, Norman Rockwell’s The Problem We All Live With (1964) was also loaned to the White House. President Obama invited Ruby Bridges, the school-integration pioneer, to see it, bridging history and progress.
In the Oval Office, Childe Hassam’s The Avenue in the Rain (1917) hangs as a nod to american patriotism.
In the family dining room, Josef Albers’s Homage to the Square: Elected II (1961) and Homage to the Square: Midday (1957), loaned by the Smithsonian. The Private Dining Room features George P. A. Healy’s The Peacemakers (1868), hanging above Muhammad Ali’s autographed boxing gloves.
The West Sitting Hall showcases reupholstered furniture, plaster Queen Anne-style tables by Stephen Antonson, and Claude Monet’s Morning on the Seine, Good Weather, a gift from the Kennedy family.
Outside the master bedroom, the Obamas chose quieter yet striking work: Alma Thomas’s Sky Light (1973), a bright blue canvas loaned from the Hirshhorn Museum, adds a serene yet bold touch in the Center Hall.
Michael Smith convinced Obama to embrace red curtains in the Oval Office, a bold choice symbolizing strength and heroism. The “barn red” curtains, paired with Edward Hopper’s Cape Cod barn paintings, conveyed classic Americana and the hope central to Obama’s message.”
merci
