Obama’s portrait was unveiled today. How have past presidents reacted to theirs?

Former President Barack Obama unveiled his official presidential portrait in the East Room of the White House Wednesday, Sept. 7, resuming a decades-old convention that was paused during former President Donald Trump’s administration.

While all American premiers have had paintings commissioned, it was not until 1978, during former President Jimmy Carter’s administration, that the first official White House portrait unveiling ceremony took place.

“The bipartisan nature of a president inviting his predecessor to come and see their portrait is one of the loveliest traditions in recent history,” Lindsay Chervinsky, a presidential historian, told McClatchy News.

Typically an outgoing president chooses an artist to depict their likeness, and years later, after the work is finished, they return to their former residence to unveil the artwork, according to Chervinsky. After the ceremony, the painting is hung permanently inside the White House for visitors, employees and residents to see.

“The president typically has some say over the setup and the vision,” said Chervinsky. “Usually it’s a collaborative process.”

After his portrait was unveiled, Obama thanked Robert McCurdy, the artist who painted his portrait, for doing a “fantastic job,” joking that he was a “difficult subject” to capture.

“You’ll note that he refused to hide any of my grey hairs, refused my request to make my ears smaller,” Obama joked during the ceremony. “He also talked me out of wearing a tan suit.”

Over the past four decades, former presidents have displayed mixed reactions upon seeing their painted likeness, often responding with a blend of self-deprecation, humor and graciousness. But, despite being involved in the planning process, not every former commander in chief approved of their finished product.

Former President Gerald Ford was the first to be welcomed back to the White House’s East Room, the largest in the residence, for a public unveiling of his portrait.

Ford, who was defeated by Carter in the 1976 election, is credited with setting the standard of bipartisanship related to the unveiling. In May of 1978, President Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter displayed the depictions of the preceding president and his wife for a room full of attendees.

“I had not seen the actual portraits until just a few minutes ago,” remarked Ford during the event, according to the American Presidency Project. “I would say that in my case, considering what Ray Kinstler [the commissioned artist] had to work with, he did very well.”

Following Ford, Carter declined to have a public ceremony to reveal his painting, but the tradition was resumed again under former President Ronald Reagan, according to the White House Historical Association. Though unveiling was not without trouble.

The former governor of California was so displeased with his portrait unveiled in 1989, done by Aaron Shikler, that he had a replacement commissioned. A second painting was then created by Kinstler, the artist hired by Ford.

Six years later, in 1995, former President George H.W. Bush returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at the invitation of then President Bill Clinton’s administration, and his likeness was displayed in the East Room.

“I feel very differently than Lyndon Johnson,” said Bush Sr. after the curtain covering his golden-framed painting was removed, in a video from the Associated Press archive. “Lyndon looked at his first portrait and he said ‘that’s the ugliest thing I ever saw.’ I’m inclined to think [my own] is pretty darn good.”

In 2004, Clinton remarked that upon his arrival to the unveiling ceremony, he felt “like a pickle stepping into history,” according to a C-SPAN video. He added that before his official portrait was commissioned, his likeness was mostly captured by political cartoonists, and that he’d endured his fair share of attacks on his appearance.

Clinton said during his remarks that he received multiple letters from plastic surgeons offering their services.

“One earnest man from Philadelphia wrote a three-page, single-spaced, typed letter saying ‘if you would just let me straighten your nose and take the bags out from under your eyes, you’d be the best looking person ever to run for president,’” Clinton said during the ceremony. “So I wrote that man a letter back and told him ‘I’d worked hard for this face and thought I’d live in it a little while longer.’”

In C-SPAN footage of former President George W. Bush’s portrait unveiling in 2012, he quipped to Obama, “thank you so much for inviting our rowdy friends to my hanging.”

“When the British burned the White House ... in 1814, Dolly Madison famously saved this portrait of the first George W,” he added, signaling to a painting of America’s first president. “Now Michelle, if anything happens, there’s your man,” said Bush, pointing to his own likeness as the crowd laughed.

During President Trump’s incumbency, neither he nor Obama were eager to appear together for an East Room ceremony, according to NBC News. So, Wednesday’s unveiling of Obama’s portrait, more than a year into Biden’s presidency, marks a return to tradition, though it is not clear how long-lived it will be.

“It is an interesting moment,” Thomas Balcerski, a visiting professor and presidential historian at Occidental College, told McClatchy News. “I think what’s happened with the Obama portrait in terms of the delay of its official unveiling, may well set an unfortunate precedent for the future in a more politicized, polarized environment.”

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