Amy Sherald facts for kids

Amy Sherald (born August 30, 1973) is a famous American painter. She is best known for her amazing portraits of African Americans. Her paintings often show people in everyday life.

Amy Sherald has a special style. She uses a technique called grisaille to paint skin tones in shades of gray. This unique choice makes her art stand out. It also makes people think differently about skin color and race.

In 2016, Amy Sherald made history. She was the first woman and the first African American to win the National Portrait Gallery's Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Her winning painting was called Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance).

The next year, something even bigger happened. Former First Lady Michelle Obama chose Amy Sherald to paint her official portrait. This was a huge honor! Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley (who painted Barack Obama's portrait) were the first African Americans to create official presidential portraits for the National Portrait Gallery. Their portraits were shown together in 2018. They brought many more visitors to the museum in Washington, D.C..

Growing Up: Amy Sherald's Story

Amy Sherald was born on August 30, 1973, in Columbus, Georgia. Her parents were Amos P. Sherald III and Geraldine W. Sherald. Amy loved art from a young age. She would often draw during recess at school. She even added pictures to her sentences when she was writing.

Amy's first trip to a museum was a big moment for her. She saw a painting by Bo Bartlett that included a Black man. This made her realize that art could be a real job. It also showed her that her own world could be seen in art.

Even though Amy loved art, her parents wanted her to become a doctor. They didn't think art was a good career. But her mother's doubts actually made Amy more determined to become an artist. She says her mother helped her become a strong woman.

Growing up, Amy was often one of the few African American students in her school. This made her think a lot about race. She wanted her paintings to tell new stories about African American life. She wanted to show different experiences than what people usually expected.

Amy Sherald's Education

Amy Sherald went to St. Anne-Pacelli Catholic School. She started college at Clark Atlanta University. She planned to study medicine, like her parents wanted. But in her second year, she took a painting class at Spelman College. This class changed everything.

She met an artist and historian named Arturo Lindsay. He taught her about African influences in American cultures. Amy graduated from Clark Atlanta University in 1997 with a degree in painting. She even worked for free as an apprentice with Lindsay for five years.

Later, Amy went to the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. She earned her Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) degree in painting in 2004. At MICA, she learned from famous painters like Grace Hartigan. She even convinced Odd Nerdrum to teach her in Norway. In 2021, MICA gave her an honorary doctorate degree.

Amy Sherald's Career

Amy Sherald has spent much of her career in Baltimore. She creates large-scale portraits that show the lives of modern African Americans. She often takes photos of people she meets on the street. Then she uses these photos to create her paintings.

Amy was very determined to be a painter. She worked as a waitress until she was 38 years old to support herself.

In 1997, she joined an artist program in Portobelo, Panama. She also helped with art shows in Peru. She has taught art at the Baltimore City Detention Center. In 2008, she worked at an art center in Beijing, China.

Her Unique Painting Style

Since 2008, Amy Sherald has painted over 30 artworks. In 2012, she started painting the skin tones of her Black subjects in gray. She uses gray instead of natural skin colors. Amy does this to challenge ideas about race and skin color. She wants to show that skin color doesn't define a person.

This choice was also inspired by old black-and-white photographs of Black people. These photos showed people with quiet strength and dignity. Amy felt her own work had a similar feeling.

Art critics say her gray-scale style makes viewers think deeply about the people in her paintings. Amy believes her generation of artists can explore themselves more. They don't always have to explain Blackness to others. They can focus on the complex inner lives of people.

Amy usually finds her subjects by meeting people in her daily life. She invites them to a photo session. Then she paints from those photographs.

Winning the Outwin Boochever Prize

Amy Sherald became very well known in 2016. Her painting, Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance), won the National Portrait Gallery's Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. She also won a $25,000 award.

The competition judges praised her innovative portraits. They said her use of color and form challenged stereotypes about African Americans. Amy was the first woman and first African American to win this competition. Her painting was chosen from 2,500 other entries.

Amy said the painting was inspired by Alice in Wonderland. She wanted her work to feel like a fantasy. This allows people to be seen as more than just their skin color.

Painting Michelle Obama's Portrait

The year after her big win, Amy Sherald was chosen by First Lady Michelle Obama to paint her official portrait. Michelle Obama felt an instant connection with Amy. She loved Amy's bold colors and unique subjects. She also liked Amy's personality.

Amy started working on the portrait right away. She looked at every picture of Michelle Obama she could find. This was a new challenge for Amy because she had never taken a specific commission before. But she still wanted to show a private and personal side of Michelle Obama.

Amy had photo sessions with Michelle Obama in Washington, D.C. They tried many dresses. They chose a simple, sleeveless maxi dress. For Amy, the dress reminded her of the history of quilting in the Black community. Some art critics also saw influences from the artist Gustav Klimt in the portrait.

When the portraits were shown in 2018, they were a big deal. Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley were the first African American artists to create official presidential portraits. Both artists often focused on African American portraiture. Many people visited the National Portrait Gallery to see them.

Some people had questions about the painting. They wondered why Michelle Obama's skin was gray. Amy explained that she didn't want to paint a super realistic picture. She wanted viewers to see Michelle Obama as a whole person, not just her race. Critics said the gray skin made viewers connect with Michelle Obama in a new way. It showed her as someone many women could relate to.

Amy felt a lot of pressure painting such an important person. But she was happy that Michelle Obama loved the final painting.

Later Works

Since winning the prize and painting Michelle Obama, Amy Sherald has become very famous. In 2018, she had her first solo museum show. She also received a mural commission in Philadelphia. A large mural version of her painting Equilibrium was put up on the Parkway Theatre in Baltimore.

In 2018, Amy moved from Baltimore to New Jersey. She now works from a studio in Jersey City.

In 2018, she won the David C. Driskell Prize from the High Museum of Art.

In 2019, Amy had a solo exhibition called "the heart of the matter..." in New York City. It showed eight large oil portraits. Critics noted how the gray skin tones made viewers think about the many different cultures and experiences within the African diaspora.

In 2020, Amy had another exhibition. It featured five small portraits of Black women created during the COVID-19 pandemic. These paintings showed Black women doing relaxing activities. Amy wants her art to be a "resting place" where people can feel comfortable.

Her first big solo show on the West Coast opened in 2021. It was called "The Great American Fact." It showed new paintings that focused on Black Americans enjoying quiet moments of leisure.

Breonna Taylor's Portrait

In 2020, Amy Sherald painted Breonna Taylor's portrait for the September cover of Vanity Fair. Breonna Taylor was a medical worker who was killed by police officers. Her case brought a lot of attention and protests around the world.

Amy painted Breonna Taylor with her signature gray skin. She wore a flowing blue dress against an aqua background. Amy said she wanted the image to inspire people to keep fighting for justice for Breonna. She felt the dress looked like Lady Justice.

The painting was bought by two museums: the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., and the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. It was part of an exhibit honoring Breonna Taylor's life.

In 2022, Amy Sherald gave $1 million from the sale of the portrait to the University of Louisville. This money created two grant programs in Breonna Taylor's name.

Art Market

On December 7, 2020, Amy Sherald's painting The Bathers (2015) sold for $4,265,000 at an auction. This was almost 30 times more than what experts thought it would sell for!

Personal Life

Amy Sherald has faced some health challenges. At age 30, she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Her heart was only working at 5%. She spent two months in the hospital waiting for a new heart. She received a heart transplant on December 18, 2012, when she was 39.

Before her transplant, Amy also took a break from art to care for a sick family member.

After living in Baltimore for 13 years, Amy moved to New Jersey in 2018.

Political Activism

Before the 2024 United States presidential election, Amy Sherald was one of many artists who helped raise money for Kamala Harris's campaign. She contributed art to an online sale.

Exhibitions

• 2011: The Magical Realism of Amy Sherald, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Sonja Haynes Stone Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
• 2013: Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, Baltimore, Maryland
• 2016: The Outwin 2016: American Portraiture Today, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
• 2017: Fictions, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
• 2018: Amy Sherald, Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis, Saint Louis, Missouri
• 2018: Amy Sherald, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas
• 2019: Amy Sherald, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia
• 2019: Amy Sherald: the heart of the matter..., Hauser & Wirth, New York, NY
• 2020: Womanist is to Feminist as Purple is to Lavender, Hauser & Wirth, NY
• 2021: Promise, Witness, Remembrance, Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
• 2022: Women Painting Women, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
• 2024: Amy Sherald: American Sublime, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 16 November 2024—9 March 2025

Public Collections

• Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery Washington, D.C.
• Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina
• Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.
• The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
• Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri
• Embassy of the United States, Dakar, Senegal
• The Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia
• FTI Technologies Inc., Baltimore, Maryland
• National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.

Images for kids

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  They call me Redbone, but I'd rather be Strawberry Shortcake (2009), National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

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  Visitors looking at First Lady Michelle Obama at the National Portrait Gallery.