The official portraits of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama were unveiled at Washington, D.C.’s National Portrait Gallery on Monday, and some were underwhelmed.

The official portraits of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama were unveiled at Washington, D.C.'s National Portrait Gallery on Monday, and some were underwhelmed.  NPR notes that both paintings are significant departures from traditional depictions and were created by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, two highly regarded U.S. artists known for their paintings of black Americans.
The Portrait Gallery describes Wiley's work as typically portraying "people of color posing as famous figures in Western art" and challenging "the visual rhetoric of power that is dominated by elite white men."  Sherald's pieces comment on race as well by abstracting the subject and rendering skin tones in gray. While numerous aspects of the paintings' creations, unveilings, and social commentaries, were significant, many social media users were unimpressed by the works themselves, reports the Daily Mail.  That was especially the case with Michelle Obama's portrait. One person tweeted, "Okay legit that Michelle Obama portrait looks like a sketch by a sixth grader," while another suggested its more characteristic of 8th grade work.  There were also people who loved the painting in general, but didn't feel that it gave a strong enough Michelle vibe. Comments from that camp included, "I'm disappointed…It doesn't capture the dynamic woman that she is," and, "the simplicity, the color – it is stunning…but it doesn't look like her."