Museum displays cupcake portrait of presidents

Posted: 02.15.2009 at 4:13 PM

WASHINGTON, DC (AP) -- A double portrait of Presidents Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln faces the prospect of being eaten away -- not by the ravages of time, but by visitors to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington .

Created by artist Zilly Rosen, the portrait titled "A New Birth of Freedom," is made of more than 5,600 yellow cupcakes with different colored icing. The 9-foot by 15-foot portrait is on display at the museum.

The public is invited to "de-install" the portrait by eating the cupcakes.

The museum says this is Rosen's second cupcake portrait of Obama. She says Rosen, who runs the Buffalo , N.Y. bakery Zillycakes, constructed a 1,200-cupcake portrait of Obama in November and set it up in his campaign headquarters in Buffalo .