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New York Times
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Amy Sherald's Blue Sky Vision for America
It has been Amy Sherald's fate to be known for one painting only. Her portrait of Michelle Obama, commissioned in 2018 by the National Portrait Gallery, brought the artist overnight fame. Ignoring the conventions of academic portraiture, a genre associated with pale men standing in front of burgundy drapes, Sherald liberated America's first lady from the fusty, cigar-brown rooms of the past. Obama, dressed in a sleeveless gown, leans forward in her chair, channeling Rodin's 'Thinker.' The background, a featureless expanse of powder blue, suggests fresh air. The painting is an anomaly in Sherald's oeuvre. 'Amy Sherald: American Sublime,' a compact and rousing retrospective of 42 paintings at the Whitney Museum of American Art, brings us the work of an artist who is not primarily a recorder of first ladies or famous faces. Rather, Sherald is a painter of one-frame short stories, of fictions that bestow recognition on people you would not recognize. She can be preachy, but her paintings are saved from sentimentality by an unerring sense of geometric design and a taste for spare, simplified, super-flat planes. Stepping off the elevator on the fifth floor of the museum, you find yourself contemplating a curved, rather amazing wall hung with five life-size portraits, each in a different sizzling color. 'The Girl Next Door' (2019), my favorite, shows a young woman in a white polka-dot dress, silhouetted against an emerald green background. Compared with the effortlessly attractive girl-next-door we know from countless films, Sherald has painted a touchingly awkward woman, her red leather belt rising up from her waist to her chest. But you can see that she is trying to look her best. Her immaculate dress, her red lipstick, her fixed-up hair with its attractive side part, are careful efforts at self-presentation that speak volumes about American girlhood. Sherald, who is 51, composes her scenes with extreme deliberation. She picks out models for her paintings and outfits them with costumes and props. She photographs them and works from her reference photographs to situate Black faces and figures into roles and settings complete with suburban lawns, white picket fences and other nostalgic symbols of American plenty. Here is a world in which it is usually summer, and days are squinty bright and shadowless. 'I'm an escapist,' Sherald once said in an interview. 'I love the Teletubbies — the idea of grass with no bugs makes me happy.' Her titles add another layer of fictional intrigue. Sometimes taken from novels or poems, they alternately heroicize her figures or gently poke fun at the human capacity for small, foolish, everyday self-deceptions. For instance, 'It Made Sense … Mostly in her Mind' (2011), shows a 30-ish woman dressed in a timeless navy blazer with gold buttons. She could be a lawyer until you notice she's wearing a lavender plastic helmet and holding an old-fashioned toy, a pink-and-white unicorn stick horse. It doesn't add up, but you can't say Sherald didn't warn us: The outfit did make sense … mostly in the subject's wishful and daydreamy mind. In some ways, Sherald's paintings are re-enactments of the childhood game of dress up. She is drawn to loud, retro-ish fabrics — to wide stripes and dresses imprinted with floral patterns or strewed with rows of strawberries or cherries or lemons. She excels at painting pleated skirts, their folds of fabric as stately and evenly spaced as ancient Greek columns. And note the exaggeratedly clean ambience. White shirts gleam with Tide-strength brightness, and khakis remain unblemished by mystery grease stains. You cannot find fresher clothing in the work of any contemporary painter, with the exception of Alex Katz, the pre-eminent realist, now in his 90s, who similarly garbs his figures in shirts and pants that look as if they were removed five minutes earlier from a J. Crew gift box. In the case of both artists, the squeaky-clean attire echoes in the formal neatness of their respective painting styles. In Sherald's case, at times I found myself searching in vain for any sign of an emphatic brush stroke, a trace of touch. This is especially true in a series of larger-than-life genre scenes that represent her more recent work. 'A God Blessed Land (Empire of Dirt),' from 2022, a mural-size painting stretching 11 feet wide, shows a man sitting atop a brand-new green tractor. What's problematic is that Sherald's instinct for pristine surfaces — which adds so much allure to her images of clothing — makes the tractor look as blandly commercial as an item in a mail-order catalog. The man could be sitting in a printed ad for a John Deere 820. Sherald's vertical portraits, by contrast, retain their pictorial charisma despite a certain repetitiveness. Nearly all of the portraits in the show, which go back to 2008, are exactly the same size (54 inches by 43 inches). The figures in her paintings, whether men, women or children, tend to have the same unblinking, inscrutable expression. They gaze at you alertly but noncommittedly, as if listening in silent judgment as you tell them a story that doesn't quite make sense. Born in Columbus, Ga., in 1973, Sherald majored in fine art at Clark Atlanta, a historically Black university. She moved to Baltimore to attend graduate school at the Maryland Institute College of Art, earning her M.F.A. in 2004. She has spoken openly about her health issues. She was just finishing graduate school when she was diagnosed with idiopathic cardiomyopathy, a serious heart condition. One day in 2012 she passed out in a Rite Aid pharmacy and woke up in a pool of blood. She was rushed to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where she waited two months for a donor's heart and then underwent surgery for a heart transplant. Four years passed. In 2016, she rose to wide attention when she became the first woman and the first Black person to be awarded the grand prize in the National Portrait Gallery's prestigious Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, which is open to any artist in the United States. Her entry, 'Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance)' (2014), is a coolly charming portrait of a Black woman in a bold polka-dot dress. She holds, in her white-gloved hands, an impossibly large teacup and saucer, exemplifying Sherald's tendency to mingle realism and fantasy. 'Kingdom' (2022), for instance — one of the standouts of the show — is a low-angled, 10-foot-tall view of a schoolboy perched on the top rung of a playground slide, his spiky, stand-up hair silhouetted against a blue sky. In a sherpa-lined denim jacket, tan pants and unscuffed white sneakers, he could be any boy of 8 or 9, anyone's brother or son. Except that he occupies the pinnacle of the painting's Renaissance-style triangular composition, looming above us, a momentary king of the universe. Sublime or Not Sublime? So how should we categorize Sherald's style? 'American Sublime,' which was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, has a baffling title. The word 'sublime,' an art-historical term, refers to art that inspires rapture or terror in a viewer, usually in response to the enormousness and grandeur of nature. When you open the Sherald exhibition catalog to Page 10 and see a full-page reproduction of Caspar David Friedrich's 'Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog' (1817), an icon of German romanticism that appeared in a show that just closed at the Met, you wonder if you picked up the wrong catalog. Sherald's work is not sublime, but in its emphasis on the transforming power of clothing, it can fairly be called 'superfine,' to borrow a word from the title of another Met show.` Sherald, it seems clear, is an American realist, recording ordinary people and pleasures. Her work is reminiscent of Norman Rockwell's illustrations for the covers of The Saturday Evening Post. He, too, combined and recombined reference photographs of his models to construct narratives of optimism and uplift about everyday Americans. One of Rockwell's acolytes, the painter Bo Bartlett, is a well-known realist, now 69, also from Columbus, Ga. Once, as a schoolgirl, Sherald saw a large-scale painting at the Columbus Museum that showed a Black man standing proudly outside a small brick house; it was painted by Bartlett, who is white. Sherald, who said she had never seen a painting of a Black person before, has described the moment as life changing, awakening her to how she wanted to spend her future. Even now, her genre scenes, especially 'A Midsummer Afternoon Dream' (2021), nod to Bartlett's luminous, blue-skied landscapes. Sherald also owes something to Horace Pippin, the pioneering, early-20th-century Black artist. In his 'Self-Portrait' (1941) at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, he rendered his face as a mask of gray monotone. Sherald similarly depicts the skin tones of her figures in neutral gray rather than in natural browns. She has said that she uses grayscale to sidestep the issue of racial categorization. Yet she does take on politics, especially in her 'Breonna Taylor' (2020), an ethereal turquoise-on-turquoise portrait of the 26-year-old medical worker who was killed in her own apartment in Louisville, Ky., in a botched police raid. 'American Sublime' will no doubt acquire a sharper political edge on Sept. 19, when it opens at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The Portrait Gallery is part of the federally funded Smithsonian Institution and consequently vulnerable to recent orders from the executive branch seeking to dismantle or reshape programs that give off a whiff of diversity, equity or inclusion. The irony is that Sherald's work is not about categorizing one group or class of people. Rather it's about characterizing folks with visibly different lives, ranging from a schoolgirl in pig tails to a legless boxer resting against ropes of red, white and blue, to a tall, transgender woman in a hot-pink wig and high-slit dress posing as the Statue of Liberty. It is cliché these days to say that we want to 'feel seen' or validated, but here's the question: If we are all hoping to feel seen, who will be left to do the looking? Sherald, for one.
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Arts and culture are also key tools of diplomacy
Amy Sherald's new exhibition, 'American Sublime,' recently opened at the Whitney Museum in New York City and will travel this fall to the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington. Sherald's famed portraits — powerful, dignified, and deeply rooted in identity and representation — remind us why the arts are a matter of great significance. They spark dialogue during times when honest conversations about race, identity, and history are most needed. In a time of shifting alliances and political uncertainty, freedom of artistic expression isn't just culturally relevant — it's a vital tool of soft power that can help build trust, foster dialogue, and extend U.S. influence in ways traditional diplomacy cannot. I know this from experience. When I was appointed U.S. ambassador to Portugal in 2022, I had not risen through the traditional ranks of the Foreign Service but came from a background steeped in the arts. Having served as a commissioner at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, I first met Sherald when she was chosen as a winner of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. This marked the beginning of my admiration for her work. Her portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama, a nuanced portrayal of both strength and grace, became a touchstone in contemporary portraiture, sparking dialogue among art critics, community leaders, and tourists alike. This fall, Sherald's exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery will mark a full-circle moment — a vivid reminder of how art bridges lives and legacies across time and space. When it came time to curate my Arts in Embassies exhibit during my tenure in Portugal, I knew Sherald's work had to be included. A State Department initiative founded under President Kennedy, the Arts in Embassies program places works by American and international artists in U.S. embassies worldwide, using visual arts as a powerful form of diplomacy. We curated a rotating collection in our residence that reflected our nation's diversity: Asian, African, Mexican, Jewish, and women artists, to name a few – all represented in a shared space. And, of course, Portuguese artists, highlighting the dialogue between our two countries. These important, creative works sparked conversation at every gathering — about identity, storytelling, creativity, and freedom. The walls of the Ambassador's residence became more than décor — they became a living exhibition of the values our nations share, and the essential conversations we must have. Witnessing the success of this exhibit, we continued using arts and culture as tools to connect communities, open dialogue, and strengthen mutual understanding throughout my ambassadorship. These varied initiatives — targeted in scale but powerful in impact — built bridges across communities that traditional diplomacy is often unable to reach. When used properly, cultural diplomacy strengthens national security. When I first arrived in Portugal, after COVID and the absence of an ambassador for 16 months, China had taken over the public discourse in the media on issues like freedom of speech, women's rights, and the rule of law. Part of my strategy for deploying a cultural diplomacy program was to take back the narrative and use the public forum to put forward our American values — to fill that space and prevent bad actors from enhancing their public influence. Now, upon returning home, the shifting political landscape has underscored the importance of applying these tools in the U.S. As the current administration enacts new policies that shift our transatlantic ties, using the arts as a tool of diplomacy isn't just symbolic — it's strategic. Sharing our patchwork of cultures and ideas through creative expression can aid us greatly in building people-to-people ties worldwide. Policymakers must keep funding cultural diplomacy initiatives. Artists must keep creating. And to the public, go see Sherald's exhibit at the Whitney. Beyond being a stunning display of an individual's talent, it's a reminder of the powerful role art can play in shaping our nation's future. Randi Charno Levine is a diplomat, arts advocate, and author who served as the U.S. ambassador to Portugal from April 2022, to January 2025. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
10-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Arts and culture are also key tools of diplomacy
Amy Sherald's new exhibition, 'American Sublime,' recently opened at the Whitney Museum in New York City and will travel this fall to the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington. Sherald's famed portraits — powerful, dignified, and deeply rooted in identity and representation — remind us why the arts are a matter of great significance. They spark dialogue during times when honest conversations about race, identity, and history are most needed. In a time of shifting alliances and political uncertainty, freedom of artistic expression isn't just culturally relevant — it's a vital tool of soft power that can help build trust, foster dialogue, and extend U.S. influence in ways traditional diplomacy cannot. I know this from experience. When I was appointed U.S. ambassador to Portugal in 2022, I had not risen through the traditional ranks of the Foreign Service but came from a background steeped in the arts. Having served as a commissioner at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, I first met Sherald when she was chosen as a winner of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. This marked the beginning of my admiration for her work. Her portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama, a nuanced portrayal of both strength and grace, became a touchstone in contemporary portraiture, sparking dialogue among art critics, community leaders, and tourists alike. This fall, Sherald's exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery will mark a full-circle moment — a vivid reminder of how art bridges lives and legacies across time and space. When it came time to curate my Arts in Embassies exhibit during my tenure in Portugal, I knew Sherald's work had to be included. A State Department initiative founded under President Kennedy, the Arts in Embassies program places works by American and international artists in U.S. embassies worldwide, using visual arts as a powerful form of diplomacy. We curated a rotating collection in our residence that reflected our nation's diversity: Asian, African, Mexican, Jewish, and women artists, to name a few – all represented in a shared space. And, of course, Portuguese artists, highlighting the dialogue between our two countries. These important, creative works sparked conversation at every gathering — about identity, storytelling, creativity, and freedom. The walls of the Ambassador's residence became more than décor — they became a living exhibition of the values our nations share, and the essential conversations we must have. Witnessing the success of this exhibit, we continued using arts and culture as tools to connect communities, open dialogue, and strengthen mutual understanding throughout my ambassadorship. These varied initiatives — targeted in scale but powerful in impact — built bridges across communities that traditional diplomacy is often unable to reach. When used properly, cultural diplomacy strengthens national security. When I first arrived in Portugal, after COVID and the absence of an ambassador for 16 months, China had taken over the public discourse in the media on issues like freedom of speech, women's rights, and the rule of law. Part of my strategy for deploying a cultural diplomacy program was to take back the narrative and use the public forum to put forward our American values — to fill that space and prevent bad actors from enhancing their public influence. Now, upon returning home, the shifting political landscape has underscored the importance of applying these tools in the U.S. As the current administration enacts new policies that shift our transatlantic ties, using the arts as a tool of diplomacy isn't just symbolic — it's strategic. Sharing our patchwork of cultures and ideas through creative expression can aid us greatly in building people-to-people ties worldwide. Policymakers must keep funding cultural diplomacy initiatives. Artists must keep creating. And to the public, go see Sherald's exhibit at the Whitney. Beyond being a stunning display of an individual's talent, it's a reminder of the powerful role art can play in shaping our nation's future. Randi Charno Levine is a diplomat, arts advocate, and author who served as the U.S. ambassador to Portugal from April 2022, to January 2025.
Boston Globe
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
The achingly human art of Michelle Obama's portraitist
Maybe the Whitney had that in mind, too: In just three months, the new administration has sledgehammered its way through American institutions knows . Amy Sherald's "A Bucket Full of Treasures (Papa Gave Me Sunshine to Put in My Pocket)," 2020, left, and "As Soft as She Is...," 2022. Joseph Hyde Advertisement It's something, you must admit, to portray someone so public, and so beloved by so many, as anything other than simply beautiful. Sherald does her much greater honor: She is beautiful — just not simply. This is the magic that she achieves in almost every picture, with a grace and softness that belies her complexity of intent. Each of Sherald's paintings is achingly human, and then so much more. Sherald, who was born in Columbus, Ga., in 1973, is a portraitist — devotedly, exclusively. But like any great portraitist — and that, she is — her portrayals of people transcend the skin deep. They are intimate and deeply personal, while expansive in their context, both culturally and historically. Her figures float largely on monochromatic backgrounds, free of setting or era, an unsettling fusion of the intimate and the unknown — allegories and archetypes with impossibly human eyes. There are too many to adequately describe piece by piece — 'As Soft as She Is …,' 2022, of a woman in a leopard print coat against a field of dusty pink, held my gaze a long time with its inscrutable humanity — though each offers a distinct experience, like a connection to a particular soul. But they exhibit a haunting unity as the work of a painter with extravagant gifts, able to capture essence as well as image, the immediate and the ineffable, all at once. Installation view of "Amy Sherald: American Sublime at the Whitney Museum of American Art. From left: "What's precious inside of him does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence (All American)," 2017; "She Always Believed the Good about Those She Loved," 2018; "Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between," 2018; "As American as Apple Pie," 2020; "Innocent You, Innocent Me," 2016; "What's different about Alice is that she has the most incisive way of telling the truth," 2017; "All Things Bright and Beautiful," 2016. Tiffany Sage/ 'American Sublime' spans not quite 20 years of Sherald's painting life. Its earliest works are from 2007, through to some painted just last year. Across that span is a disarming consistency: Sherald achieved broad acclaim Advertisement Sherald paints people right-size; when you stand in front of one of her works, the figure within feels as though he or she could step out and stand next to you. A key element has been there from the start: She paints her subjects' skin in The subtle discordance introduces a paradox — does it make race less apparent, or more? To be clear: Sherald's work is about Black life, but more broadly, about Black visibility, an ethic she shares with senior painters like Henry Taylor or Kerry James Marshall. Marshall paints all his figures' skin almost exclusively in deep ebony, a forceful act of self-declaration; he has often said his work is about rebuilding an art historical canon retrofit with Black stories forever excluded, freighting his figures with allegorical intent. But Sherald elides the declarative for the suggestive and nuanced. What you see before you is always a human being first, frank and open about being seen. Amy Sherald, "A God Blessed Land (Empire of Dirt)," 2022. © Amy Sherald. Joseph Hyde When she departs, however infrequently, from straight portraiture, like Marshall, she casts her subjects in everyday scenes that sometimes push against expectation: 'A God Blessed Land (Empire of Dirt),' 2022, of a proud Black farmer astride a massive John Deere tractor, asserts Black presence in a rural American life. Her earliest works here don't have the same clarity as some made just a few years later — 'Hangman,' from 2007, depicts a Black man in profile, awash in a ruddy ochre fog banded in lavender — but the softly forthright strategy that is her hallmark emerged quickly. 'They Call Me Redbone, but I'd rather be Strawberry Shortcake,' from 2009, floats a young girl in a bright yellow floral dress with a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks on a background of hazy pink; her head tilts just so — inquisitive, or condemning? The title brings into the frame an element of biography: 'Redbone,' a block of text on the wall explains, is a term for a pale-skinned Black person, like Sherald herself — and her desire to simply be a child, Black or not. Advertisement Amy Sherald's "Listen, you a wonder. You a city of a woman. You got a geography of your own," 2016, left, and "They Call Me Redbone, but I'd Rather Be Strawberry Shortcake," 2009. Joseph Hyde/Ryan Stevenson Titles matter to Sherald, infusing her plainspoken work with contextual freight. 'Listen, you a wonder. You a city of a woman. You got a geography of your own,' a mesmerizing 2016 picture of an uneasy-looking woman in a floppy sun hat and fancy spaghetti-strapped dress clutching her handbag close, takes it's name from a Lucille Clifton poem; it reads almost as a mantra of reassurance running through the subject's head, as she navigates an unwelcoming world. Other works bring authors like Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jane Austen into their titles; what they all share, like Sherald, is a mind-set of liberation from whatever forces keep them in their place. When Sherald dips into charged moments of racial animus, it's deftly and with humanity held close. 'Innocent You, Innocent Me,' 2016, of a teen boy in a hoodie, pays homage to Advertisement Amy Sherald, "Breonna Taylor," 2020. The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky. © Amy Sherald. Joseph Hyde This, of course, is the point: The painting was made for the cover of If there was ever a show for this very moment, this is it. The withering of normalcy in American life since January has been swift, brutal, and profound. 'American Sublime' is affirming, countering its tsunami of despair with a noble grace, powerfully, quietly present in every work. I wanted to live inside it. I wish I could. Advertisement AMY SHERALD: AMERICAN SUBLIME Through Aug. 10. Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort St., New York, N.Y. 212-570-3600, Murray Whyte can be reached at
Forbes
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Amy Sherald: American Sublime' At The Whitney Re-imagines American Realism With Singular Visual Narratives
Installation view of Amy Sherald: American Sublime (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April ... More 9-August 10, 2025). From left to right: Ecclesia (The Meaning of Inheritance and Horizions), 2024; Trans Forming Liberty, 2024. Two figures – one in a breezy, colorful striped sundress and a white hair band, another with cropped hair in a white t-shirt and denim miniskirt – hold hands. The woman in the dress gazes back at the viewer, while the other woman stares intently at a powerful stream of hot, expanding gases that escape through the nozzle of a rocket that's just launched. The horizon is low and the pale blue sky occupies most of the monumental canvas. The nearly life-size women own the scene, they own the experience, and our role is only to observe. Planes, rockets, and the spaces in between (2018) – at the time, the largest painting executed by Amy Sherald – was some three years in the making after the master painter and storyteller of the contemporary African American experience in the United States stretched the massive canvas. The Columbus, Georgia-born, New York City area-based artist reclaims the quintessentially American experience of gathering to watch a rocket launch, from the white men who rule the U.S. space program. Only 18 of the 360 astronauts enlisted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have been Black, with Guion Bluford becoming the first African American in space in 1983. Amy Sherald, Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between, 2018. Oil on canvas, 100 x 67 x 2 1/2 in. ... More (254 x 170.1 x 6.35 cm). Baltimore Museum of Art, Purchase with exchange funds from the Pearlstone Family Fund and partial gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., BMA 2018.80. Sherald met the two women (a teacher and a recent graduate) who served as her models at the Baltimore Renaissance Academy High School, while raising money to send students to see Black Panther, the superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. At grand scale, an everyday experience became an exceptional painting. On loan from the Baltimore Museum of Art – which purchased it with exchange funds from the Pearlstone Family Fund and partial gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc. – the oil on canvas is among 50 stunning paintings from 2007 to the present on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York through August 10. Amy Sherald: American Sublime, the trailblazing artist's first major museum survey is another must-see blockbuster exhibition at the Whitney, which has made tremendous gains in drawing crowds to recent blockbuster exhibitions – Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night (on view through July 6) and Edges Of Ailey – that make the art itself accessible to a broader audience. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Publicity Image Sheet Amy Sherald, Breonna Taylor, 2020. Oil on linen, 54 × 43 × 2 1/2 in. The Speed ... More Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, Museum, purchase made possible by a grant from the Ford Foundation; and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, purchase made possible by a gift from Kate Capshaw It's impossible not to shudder while admiring Sherald's elegant portrait of Breonna Taylor or to long for less oppressive times when examining her regal portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama, both exemplifying the notion of American Sublime. The title is borrowed from Elizabeth Alexander's fourth collection persona poems, historical narratives, jazz riffs, sonnets, elegies, and a sequence of ars poetica which examines the Black experience through the lens of the slave rebellion on the Amistad and nineteenth-century American art. Sherald's work is imbued with witty literary references (Jane Austen, Octavia E. Butler, Emily Dickinson, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison) and clever art historical homage. Amy Sherald, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, 2018. Oil on linen, 72 1/8 × 60 1/8 × 2 3/4 in. ... More (183.1 × 152.7 × 7 cm). National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. The National Portrait Gallery is grateful to the following lead donors for their support of the Obama portraits: Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg; Judith Kern and Kent Whealy; Tommie L. Pegues and Donald A. Capoccia. Sherald rocketed to national prominence when Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance) (2014) became the first woman and the first African American to win the 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. A girl in a v-neck sheath dress, one half solid with white piping the other half adorned in polka dots, looks directly at the viewer, her intense gaze commanding attention under a bold crimson beret. Donning white gloves, she holds an oversize teacup over a saucer, as if she's written into Chapter 7 of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, A Mad Tea Party. Surrealism comes into play in several works, never drawing us away from the real circumstances of Sherald's subjects. Amy Sherald, Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance), 2014. Oil on canvas, 54 × 43 × 2 1/2 in. ... More (137.16 × 109.22 × 6.35 cm). Private Collection. Sherald subverts U.S. history by meticulously posing a gay Black couple in place of an unidentified uniformed sailor and a uniformed nurse (a 2012 book identified them as George Mendonsa and Greta Friedman) in a famous photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt published in Life magazine and became one of the most famous images of the 20th century. The photograph from August 14, 1945, commemorating V-J Day, the day Japan ceased fighting in World War II, is an iconic symbol of emotion and victory, and Sherald extends that raw energy to Black soldiers who returned from the war to a still-segregated nation, and re-imagines masculine identities. Amy Sherald, For Love, and for Country, 2022. Oil on linen, 123 1/4 × 93 1/8 × 2 1/2 in. (313 × ... More 236.5 × 6.4 cm). San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Purchase, by exchange, through a gift of Helen and Charles Schwab. Look closely at the faces, gazes, poses, and hand positions of each of Sherald's subjects, and how some interact with landscapes and play with scale and perception. The stories are original, profound, multifaceted, and focused, and each complex visual narrative underscores Sherald's commitment to sharing her world view, her America. Sherald's oeuvre so far is singular in its advancement of the American Realist tradition of artists such as Edward Hopper, who were foundational to the Whitney's founding in 1930, by presenting a new tradition that emerged from art departments and galleries of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), where she first trained as an artist. Amy Sherald: American Sublime is organized by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and curated by Sarah Roberts, former Andrew W. Mellon Curator and Head of Painting and Sculpture at SFMOMA. The Whitney presentation is organized by Arnhold Associate Curator Rujeko Hockley with curatorial assistant David Lisbon.
