Michelle Obama Visits Studio Museum in Harlem

Tina Fineberg/Associated Press Michelle Obama at the Studio Museum on Tuesday.

As President Obama attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, First Lady Michelle Obama hosted an event for dozens of the spouses of chiefs of state and heads of government at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

The event included her own tour of the museum, performances by Audra McDonald, the Dance Theater of Harlem and students from the Fiorella H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and a luncheon at which Mrs. Obama spoke. Her remarks focused on the importance of the arts in Harlem in expressing the complexity and struggle of African-Americans and she also spoke of the importance of education everywhere.

“There’s a reason why I wanted to bring you all to Harlem today and that is because this community is infused with the kind of energy and passion that is quintessentially American but that has also touched so many people around the world,” she said. She mentioned such artists as Louis Armstrong, Langston Hughes, Aaron Douglas, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ella Fitzgerald. She read from Hughes’s poem “Dreams”: “Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”

Mrs. Obama noted that many of the women assembled have devoted significant time to improving the lives of women and girls in their countries, especially when it comes to education. “When both boys and girls have an equal opportunity to learn we all know that it’s not just good for our children, it’s also good for their families and it’s also good for their countries,” she said.

She added that students must also take responsibility for their own educations. Earlier, wearing a blue and white sheath designed by Carolina Herrera, Mrs. Obama stood in a receiving line in the sculpture garden of the museum at 144 West 125th Street, located on the commercial spine of Harlem. She traded kisses, hugged, shook hands and posed for photographs with 44 spouses from countries as varied as Samoa, Monaco, Pakistan and Poland. In all, 49 spouses attended the event.

The luncheon was held in the main gallery of the museum, a white room of track lighting and wooden floors. Surrounding the round tables was a selection of paintings by the Houston artist Robert Pruitt, whose exhibition “Women” will be on display at the museum until Oct. 27. The large canvases all feature black women adorned with references from art history to comic books, created with a kind of crayon on craft butcher paper.

The lunch was provided by Marcus Samuelsson, the celebrity chef who owns the popular Red Rooster restaurant in Harlem. The menu included arugula salad, shrimp and dirty rice and banana pudding parfait. Mrs. Obama thanked Mr. Samuelsson and told the women that they would be sent home with a gift basket that included his recipes.