A public that wants to know everything about Barack Obama can thank Lisa Jack for a glimpse of what the future president was like when he was just another college freshman trying to cut a figure in this world — with a partly unbuttoned Oxford shirt, a big Panama hat and puffs of cigarette smoke as his props of choice for projecting that coveted aura of post-adolescent confidence and cool.
Obama can thank Jack for keeping the roll of photographs she took of him in 1980 out of circulation until he was elected. Nine were first published in Time magazine’s December “Person of the Year” spread on Obama; now 21 of the 36 photos, plus a blow-up of her original contact sheet, make up “Barack Obama: The Freshman,” an exhibition opening Thursday at M+B Gallery in West Hollywood.
