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Michelle Obama Portrait To Be Taken Down From The National Portrait Gallery This Sunday Ahead of Tour

The five-city “Obama Portraits Tour” starts on June 18.

The portrait of Michelle Obama hanging at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. will be taken down on Sunday (May 23) ahead of its national tour.  

The Hill reports that the painting of the former first lady by Amy Sherald and the oil-on-canvas portrait of former President Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley won't return to D.C. until 2022. On June 18, the five-city "Obama Portraits Tour" will kick off in the former FLOTUS' hometown of Chicago before making its way to other cities, including Houston, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Atlanta.  

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The Obamas first unveiled their portraits at a Smithsonian event in 2018. 

“I look pretty sharp,” the former POTUS said during the grand reveal, according to CBS News.  “I tried to negotiate less grey hair. I tried to negotiate smaller ears, struck out on that as well.”

Responding to her painting, Mrs. Obama said, “I am humbled, I am honored, I am proud, but most of all, I am so incredibly grateful to all the people who came before me in this journey.”

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