THE WHITE HOUSE walls are to have another modern art addition – this time Rauschenberg’s ‘Early Bloomer’.

The Obama family have been redecorating ever since they started living in the White House. In a sharp contrast to what was hung on the walls before, they have added more modern paintings to the White House art collection.

The donation from the Rauschenberg Foundation is another sharp departure from the 19th-century still lifes, pastorals and portraits that dominated the White House’s public rooms before Obama took office. President Obama is now choosing more bold, abstract art works to hang on the walls.

According to The Art Newspaper Michelle Obama said the painting has been accepted into the permanent collection of the White House. The work could be hung in the family dining room but other rooms are also being considered.

These new modern additions are quite a  shift in presidential taste. The Guardian reports that when the Obama family first moved into the White House they decorated their private quarters with abstract pieces by living American artists such as Ed Ruscha’s ‘I Think I’ll…, 1983′.

They put out a call to museums, galleries and private collectors that they’d like to borrow modern art by African-American, Asian, Hispanic and female artists for the White House. Other American artists in the White House are Georgia O’ Keefe, Frederic Remington, Alma Thomas, Jasper Johns and Mark Rothko.

The Norman Rockwell painting, which was criticised by some when it first appeared on the cover of Look magazine in 1964, was hung on the wall outside the Oval office in the summer of 2011.

(YouTube/whitehouse)

For generations presidents have introduced their own style into the White House. Here are just a few things that have decorated the White House: