Amy Sherald was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1973. Early in school, she found out “Art class was my safe haven.” She pursued a career in art, earning a BA in painting from Clark Atlanta University (1997) and an MFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2004). She was awarded an honorary doctorate by Maryland Institute in 2021. Michelle Obama selected Sherald in 2018 to paint her official portrait. Barack Obama told her, “I want to thank you for so spectacularly capturing the grace and beauty and intelligence and charm and hotness of the woman that I love.” Sherald moved from Baltimore to Newark, New Jersey, in 2018. She named her Pekingese-Jack Russell terrier August Wilson, who has been called the “theater’s poet of Black America” by the NY Times.
From the beginning, Sherald’s painting focused on black people: “I understand the importance of being represented at a cultural level and being able to see reflections of yourself, and society, and in culture. I basically paint people who I want to see exist in the world, but then I also want to create a narrative that’s extricated from a dominant historical narrative…In a way, it’s become a form of social justice for me because I’m doing a job now.”
”The Fairest of the Not So Fair” (2008)
Sherald invites real people she meets to her studio where she photographs them several times until she finds an image she wants to paint. Her forte is portraiture: “I synthesize my own archetypes and icons to create playful yet sober portraits of Black Americans within an imaginative history where I do black my way, in the European tradition of painted portraiture.” The story each portrait tells is a combination of reality and fantasy.
“The Fairest of the Not So Fair” (2008) (72’’x67’’) (oil) was inspired by the mirror in Alice in Wonderland that the Queen of Hearts repeatedly asked who was the fairest of them all. The young black woman is dressed in a gold and white ball gown, and she holds a gold mirror. Posed against a mottled red background, she stands ready to go to the ball. But can she? The historical portrait icon should be a white woman. Sherald questions race, identity, and expected standards. Would this Alice be accepted or excluded by society? The white feathers covering her eyes lend a sense of mystery, or anonymity.
Another Sherald signature is the color of the subject’s skin, painted with the colors black and Naples yellow. The result is neither white nor black, but gray. Neutral. Her paintings are large. Her early paintings were of single figures set before mottled backgrounds. The careful poses and clothing are part of the story.
Sherald’s titles are as important as the images themselves. They are meant to be read carefully and to generate thought. She commented, “My paintings imagine the versions of ourselves that thrive when extricated from the dominant historical narratives…”
”A Midsummer Afternoon Dream” (2021)
In more recent paintings, Sherald added background landscapes. “A Midsummer Afternoon Dream” (2021) (106’’x101’’) (oil) features a beautiful young black woman, wearing a bright blue dress and leaning against a yellow bicycle. Sherald’s colors always have been vivid. The subject stands on a green lawn, made more intense by her white tennis shoes, the black and orange stripes of the bicycle wheels, and the white picket fence behind her. The color yellow is used for the tall sunflowers behind the fence and the sunflowers in the orange basket of the bicycle. A white farmhouse with a red brick chimney is set in the distance behind the fence at the right. It is hard to find. In the bicycle basket are purple, blue, and white daisies. An albino Pekingese dog sits at the front of the basket. The handlebars are reddish brown, as are the centers of the sunflowers. The touches of orange in the subject’s visor and the bicycle basket and wheels complete the color palette. The blue sky is slightly cloudy. Noticing all the details in a Sherald composition is an essential part of experiencing her work. She is quite brilliant.
”A God Blessed Land (Empire of Dirt)” (2022)
“A God Blessed Land” (“Empire of Dirt”) (2022) (96”x103”) (oil) is a portrait of Denzel Mitchell, Jr., a Baltimore farmer and executive director of the Farm Alliance of Baltimore. The setting is a field and a green John Deere tractor with a pink steering wheel. The tractor is meticulously painted. The shine of the paint, the tire treads, and the shadow and light on the yellow wheels are mesmerizing. The grass is not perfectly green; the dirt, dried stalks, and dark-shaded stalks add variety to the palette. Denzel Mitchell’s white T-shirt and blue-jean overalls are a reference to the clothing worn by members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights movement. She and Mitchell had become friends.
Growing up, Sherald spent summers on a farm. She wanted to make a statement about the ownership of land and what that meant for black families. She also wanted to remind the viewer of the significance of black farmers in America’s agricultural history. The electrical fence across the green field goes almost unnoticed. But it is significant.
”Kingdom” (2022)
“Kingdom” (2022) (117”x93”) (oil) is a depiction of a young black boy on the top step of a playground slide. Like the John Deere tractor, the slide’s metallic surface is meticulously painted. The top step is placed in the center of the composition. The boy wears a blue denim jacket with a sherpa collar, and his T-shirt is white with red stripes: red, white, and blue. He is comfortable at the top of his world. There is a sense of hope and possibility. In the museum, he stands above the viewer and calmly looks down. For the moment, he is the King of his World.
”To Tell Her Story You Must Walk in Her Shoe” (2022)
The titles of Sherald’s paintings are as important as the images. “To Tell Her Story You Must Walk in Her Shoes” (2022) (54”x43”) (oil) really does not need comment. Sometimes the message is simple. The design on the sweater says it all.
”Trans Forming Liberty” (2024)
“Trans Forming Liberty” (2024) (10’x6.4’) (oil) is a portrait of black artist Arewa Basit, who identifies as a non-binary trans-femme, in the pose of the Statue of Liberty. Sherald altered the pose. The color of the gown is ultramarine, and the hair is fuchsia. There is no crown. The statue’s right arm is fully extended and holds the torch. In the portrait, Basit holds at shoulder height a bouquet of Gerbera daisies, symbols of joy and hope. Her modern gown has a thigh-high slit that reveals leg. The pose is familiar, as is the hand on hip gesture. This Lady Liberty is confident, imposing, and questioning. Sherald says her painting “exists to hold space for someone whose humanity has been politicized and disregarded.”
The painting is part of Sherald’s American Sublime exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art, open through April 5, 2026. The exhibition was at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2024 and the Whitney Museum in New York in 2025. It was to open at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. The painting became controversial, considered to be too DEI (diversity, equality, and inclusion). When Museum officials decided not to include the painting, Sherald canceled the entire exhibition. She wrote to the Museum, “I entered into this collaboration in good faith, believing that the institution shared a commitment to presenting work that reflects the full, complex truth of American life. Unfortunately, it has become clear that the conditions no longer support the integrity of the work as conceived.”
“Portraiture has always been my way of asserting presence—of creating visibility where there has too often been erasure.” (Amy Sherald)
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