QUICK TAKES - Sept. 12, 2009

Having done a bonanza business during a three-month engagement at M+B Gallery in West Hollywood, the photography exhibition “Barack Obama: The Freshman” will mark a presidential homecoming of sorts with its move next month to the campus where “Barry,” as he was known then, spent his first two years of college.

Sixteen of the black-and-white images that photography student Lisa Jack took of Obama when he was a 19-year-old freshman at Occidental College will be on display Oct. 12 to Nov. 6 in the campus’ Coons Administration Center.

The pictures of the president as callow youth, deploying a cigarette and a Panama hat for that likable-but-cool effect, were taken in the living room of the little apartment Jack rented a stone’s throw from the Eagle Rock campus. Now the pictures will take up residence in a prominent spot, the foyer of the college president’s office, as part of the pomp and circumstance surrounding the Oct. 24 inauguration of Jonathan Veitch as Oxy’s new president.

Shannon Richardson, the M+B Gallery’s director, said plans are in the works for the show to move on to a gallery in Paris after the photos are displayed at Occidental. M+B sold more than 300 limited-edition prints of the future president -- priced from $1,000 to $4,500 -- during the gallery show that ended Aug. 29, she said.

--

Mike Boehm