Barack Obama Day day. Perry County, Alabama, has celebrated the second Monday of November as Barack Obama Day since 2009. County offices and schools are closed for the holiday. In 2017, Illinois State Representatives André Thapedi and Sonya Harper introduced a bill to designate Barack Obama Day as a state holiday. The original measure would have closed schools and state offices for the day. It was rejected by the House in March 2017, citing expense and the lack of a holiday for other presidents from Illinois, such as Ronald Reagan. That same year, State Senator Emil Jones III and others introduced Illinois Senate
President Barack Obama (painting) use of bushes in the portrait. President Barack Obama (painting) President Barack Obama is a 2018 portrait of Barack Obama by the artist Kehinde Wiley for the National Portrait Gallery. In October 2017, it was announced that Wiley had been chosen by Barack Obama to paint an official portrait of the former president to appear in Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery "America's Presidents" exhibition. The painting depicts Obama sitting in a chair seemingly floating among foliage. The foliage is described by the author as "chrysanthemums (the official flower of Chicago), jasmine (symbolic of Hawaii where the president spent most of his