Barack Obama, portrait by Origa, pen&ink + ecoline, 10×20, framed for Nòva100.

Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in
as the 44th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2009. The son of
a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, he was the first
African-American to ascend to the highest office in the land.

On Nov. 6, 2012, Mr. Obama was re-elected, defeating his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney,
after a long, hard-fought campaign that centered on who would heal the
battered economy and on what role government should play in the 21st
century.