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The shows titlepartly inspired by Elizabeth Alexanderspoetry collectionof the same namecrystallizes that intention.
Amy Sherald,A Midsummer Afternoon Dream, 2021. Oil on canvas, 106 × 101 × 2 1/2 in. (269.24 × 256.54 × 6.35cm). Private Collection. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photograph by Joseph Hyde
Across nearly 50 artworks spanning the last 18 years, American beauty takes on many forms on Sheralds canvas.
Amy Sherald,For Love, and for Country, 2022.
Oil on linen, 123 1/4 93 1/8 2 1/2 in.
Amy Sherald,For Love, and for Country, 2022. Oil on linen, 123 1/4 × 93 1/8 × 2 1/2 in. (313 × 236.5 × 6.4 cm). San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Purchase, by exchange, through a gift of Helen and Charles Schwab. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photograph by Joseph Hyde
(313 236.5 6.4 cm).
Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.
Those artists, however, didnt paint Black and brown people.
Installation view ofAmy Sherald: American Sublime(Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April 9–August 10, 2025). From left to right: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.
So now Amy is like, Let me fill that in.
Let me do this for my time, my people, and my community.
Weve always been here.
Amy Sherald,Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, 2018. Oil on linen, 72 1/8 × 60 1/8 × 2 3/4 in. (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. Courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery
For Sherald, fashion and aesthetics are integral to her storytellingimportant markers of her subjects personhood.
Fashion in my work is never incidental, she says.
Case in point: what is undoubtedly Sheralds most iconic portrait to dateMichelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama(2018).
Still impressive, the portrait commands its own room in the show.
Amy Sherald,Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, 2018.
Oil on linen, 72 1/8 60 1/8 2 3/4 in.
(183.1 152.7 7 cm).
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
The curator continues: Its about knowing who you are and standing in your power.
Amys work is uplifting, but not in a saccharine way.
Look at how powerful we are.
But with her vividly beautiful work, Sherald offers an alternative vision.
Thats the sublime Im interested ina quiet, powerful assertion of being.
Amy Sherald: American Sublime is on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art through August 10.
