Amy Sherald, “As Soft as She Is…,” 2022. Oil on linen, 54 1/8 × 43 1/8 × 2.5 in. (137.16 × 109.22 × 6.35 cm). Tate, purchased with funds provided by the Tymure Collection. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. (Photo: Joseph Hyde)
Acclaimed portrait artist Amy Sherald, widely known for her oil portraits of Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor, is holding her first major museum survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Opening in April, the survey includes around 50 paintings that demonstrate her early work as well as the striking portraits of Black Americans that have become her calling card.
American Sublime firmly positions Sherald as one of America’s most significant contemporary artists. By displaying iconic paintings together with rarely seen early work and pieces painted specifically for the show, the exhibition gives visitors a clear view of how Sherald has boldly continued the American tradition of realism and figurative painting. And at the same time, the show also honors her unique vision and the powerful choice to focus on subjects that have traditionally been overlooked throughout the history of portraiture.
“She challenges the concept of color-as-race by favoring grayscale for skin tones and creates finely rendered backgrounds that provide few context clues and ask viewers to focus instead on the inner lives of the individuals depicted,” writes SFMOMA director Christopher Bedford in the foreword of the catalog that accompanies the exhibition.
“These works are not about display of surface realities or the projection of a persona. They instead distill, stripping away our preconceptions and staging eye-to-eye encounters between subject and viewer, asking us to engage with the figures on the canvas as they actually are.”
Sherald, whose work is currently on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art until March 9, also has new work commissioned by the Whitney to complement the upcoming exhibition. Four portraits by the artist will be featured on the façade of a building across the street from the museum entrance. These portraits, some of which have not been displayed previously in New York, are intended to represent “the intersection of past, present, and future.” The piece titled Amy Sherald: Four Ways of Beingwill be on view from March 25, 2025, and will surely whet the public’s appetite for the exhibition.
This celebration of Sherald’s oeuvre, which will travel to Washington’s National Portrait Gallery after the Whitney, cements her place in the history of American art. This is particularly thrilling given art history’s exclusion of both women and people of color. As exhibition curator Sarah Roberts writes, “Amy Sherald’s paintings speak of the American present.”
Amy Sherald: American Sublime will be on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art from April 9, 2025 until August 10, 2025.
Acclaimed portrait artist Amy Sherald, widely known for her oil portraits of Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor, is holding her first major museum survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Amy Sherald, “Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama,” 2018. Oil on linen, 72 1/8 × 60 1/8 × 2.5 in. (183.1 × 152.718 × 6.3 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. Courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery
Amy Sherald, “Breonna Taylor,” 2020. Oil on linen, 54 × 43 × 2 1/2 in. (137.2 × 109.2 × 6.4 cm). The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, purchase made possible by a gift from Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg/The Hearthland Foundation and the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY, purchase made possible by a gift from the Ford Foundation. © Amy Sherald
The survey includes around 50 paintings that demonstrate her early work as well as the striking portraits of Black Americans that have become her calling card.
Amy Sherald, “Saint Woman,” 2015. Oil on canvas, 54 × 43 × 2.5 in. (137.16 × 109.22 × 6.35 cm). Private collection. Courtesy Monique Meloche Gallery and Hauser & Wirth. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. (Photo: Joseph Hyde)
Amy Sherald, “What’s precious inside of him does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence (All American),” 2017. Oil on canvas, 54 × 43 × 2.5 in. (137.16 × 109.22 × 6.35 cm). Private collection, courtesy Monique Meloche Gallery. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. (Photo: Joseph Hyde)
Amy Sherald, “If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it,” 2019. Oil on canvas, 130 × 108 × 2 1/2 in. (330.2 × 274.3 × 6.4 cm. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee, Sascha S. Bauer, Jack Cayre, Nancy Carrington Crown, Nancy Poses, Laura Rapp, and Elizabeth Redleaf 2020.148. © Amy Sherald
Amy Sherald, “Listen, you a wonder. You a city of a woman. You got a geography of your own,” 2016. Oil on canvas, 54 × 43 × 2.5 in (137.16 × 109.22 × 6.35 cm). Collection of Rashid Johnson and Sheree Hovsepian. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. (Photo: Joseph Hyde)
The show honors her unique vision and the powerful choice to focus on subjects that have traditionally been overlooked throughout the history of portraiture.
Amy Sherald, “Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between,” 2018. Oil on canvas, 100 x 67 x 2.5 in. (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. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. (Photo: Joseph Hyde)
Amy Sherald, The Rabbit in the Hat, 2008. Oil on canvas, 54 × 43 × 2.5 in. (137.16 × 109.22 × 6.35 cm). Green Family Art Foundation, courtesy Adam Green Art Advisory. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. (Photo: Christina Hussey)
Amy Sherald, “The Bathers,” 2015. Oil on canvas, 72 1/8 × 67 × 2.5 in. (183.2 × 170.2 cm). Private Collection. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. (Photo: Joseph Hyde)
Amy Sherald, “They Call Me Redbone, but I’d Rather Be Strawberry Shortcake,” 2009. Oil on canvas, 54 × 43 × 2.5 in. (137.16 × 109.22 × 6.35 cm). National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in honor of the artist and the 25th anniversary of National Museum of Women in the Arts. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. (Photo: Ryan Stevenson)
“Amy Sherald’s paintings speak of the American present.”
Amy Sherald, “A Midsummer Afternoon Dream,” 2021. Oil on canvas, 106 × 101 × 2.5 in. (269.24 × 256.54 × 6.35 cm). Private Collection. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. (Photo: Joseph Hyde)
Amy Sherald, “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance),” 2014. Oil on canvas, 54 × 43 × 2.5 in. (137.16 × 109.22 × 6.35 cm). Private Collection. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. (Photo: Joseph Hyde)
Amy Sherald, “Hangman,” 2007. Oil on canvas, 100 × 67 × 2.5 in. (254 × 170.18 × 6.35 cm). Collection of Sheryll Cashin and Marque Chambliss. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. (Photo: Kelvin Bulluck)