Michelle Obama's Official Portrait Painted By Long Island Artist

GLEN COVE, NY — Being chosen as the official portraitist of a President or First Lady is an honor for any artist, and when Glen Cove native, painter Sharon Sprung, was chosen to paint Michelle Obama's official White House portrait, she said she was "honored," and "grateful."

Sprung, 69, grew up on Milford Lane in Glen Cove, she told Newsday earlier this month, after her portrait of Obama was unveiled at the White House in September. She said she was inspired by the local mansions and estates around her as a child.

“When I was younger, I enjoyed with my friends sort of wandering into the estates and playing there, unknown and unseen, because they were so beautiful."

Sprung's work is currently the subject of an exhibition at Gallery Henoch on West 25th St. called "Passionate Jungles," running until Oct. 25.

Sprung has experience painting portraits of prominent women, a description from the gallery explains:

"The feat of painting a portrait under secrecy does not take away from the collaborative efforts portraits require. After being chosen, the artists meet with the subjects to work through the representation meant to hang in the presidential residence. Sprung has painted posthumous portraits of Representative Patsy Mink, the first woman of color in Congress, and Representative Jeannette Rankin, the first female member of the House of Representatives. Sprung treats her portraits as a shared vision, a visible biography."

Sprung now lives in Brooklyn and teaches at the Art Students League. It took her nine months to create the oil painting of the former First Lady.

Sprung posted on Facebook: "My heart and soul goes to Michelle for her kindness. It's hard to express the breadth of Michelle in one painting."

Her Michelle Obama painting will permanently remain on display at the White House.

When asked during the selection process why she paints, Sprung shared a story from her childhood on Long Island with The New York Times.

“I said that my father had died when I was 6, and all the photographs were destroyed," she said. "So I had nothing of him that was left, and remembering his face, and other people’s faces, was so embedded in my being, that that’s why I’m a portrait painter."