AMY SHERALD, “A God Blessed Land (Empire of Dirt),” 2022 (oil on linen, 96 1/8 x 130 1/8 inches). | Tymure Collection, © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Joseph Hyde
THE LARGEST-EVER EXHIBITION of Amy Sherald (b. 1973) opens in November at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). One of the most anticipated shows of the fall season, “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” features more than 45 paintings dating from 2007 to 2024. The first mid-career survey and most comprehensive presentation of the artist travels next to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in April 2025, and then continues on to Washington, D.C., in September 2025.
Sherald paints timeless, imaginative portraits of ordinary people and became more widely known when she was commissioned to make a portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama. The arrival of “American Sublime” at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG) next fall represents a banner moment for Sherald. According to NPG, the exhibition will be the first-ever solo exhibition of a Black female artist since the museum opened its doors in 1968.
The milestone occasion marks the latest historic first for Sherald at the institution where her sharp rise began less than a decade ago.
It all started with a charming portrait of a young woman wearing a red hat, navy blue dress, and white gloves holding an oversized teacup. Sherald had been participating in group exhibitions since that late 1990s and was more recently the subject of solo exhibitions at Black museums in Chapel Hill, N.C. (2011), and Baltimore, Md. (2013), when she entered the painting in NPG’s 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance)” (2014) won first place and Sherald became the first woman and first Black artist awarded the top prize in the competition. The honor included $25,000 and a commission to create a portrait of a living person for the museum’s collection.
Winning the Outwin Boochever prize changed the trajectory of Sherald’s career. The timing was fortuitous. The recognition landed Sherald among a select group of artists Obama was considering to paint her official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery. Obama selected Sherald and she became the first Black artist commissioned to paint an official First Lady portrait for the museum. The portrait was unveiled in 2018 and entered the NPG collection, which includes First Lady portraits dating back to Martha Washington.
AMY SHERALD, “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance),” 2013 (oil on canvas, 54 x 43 x 2.5 inches / 137.16 x 109.22 x 6.35 cm). | Private Collection, © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Joseph Hyde
THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY rarely presents exhibitions dedicated to a single artist. Solo exhibitions of Harlem photographer James Van Der Zee were mounted in 1993-94 and 2021-22. Over the decades, women artists including Elaine de Kooning, Marisol Escobar, Annie Leibovitz, and Hung Liu have had solo shows. An individual exhibition of Wendy Red Star is forthcoming in 2026.
“The Black List: Photographs by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders” (2011-12) and “I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker’s Portraits of Remarkable Black Women” (2022-23) were solo exhibitions showcasing iconic images by white photographers. Featuring works and archival materials by several artists, biographical presentations have focused on individual Black cultural figures such as Josephine Baker, Frederick Douglass, and James Baldwin, who is the subject of “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon: James Baldwin and the Voices of Queer Resistance,” which is currently on view at the museum.
More than half a century has elapsed and the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition history has yet to include a solo exhibition of a Black female artist. Sherald will be the first when “American Sublime” opens next year. She is also the first Black artist active in the contemporary era to have a solo show at the institution.
Amy Sherald will be the first Black female artist granted a solo exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. The distinction follows Sherald winning the museum’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition in 2016, becoming the first woman and first Black artist to take the top prize. She is also the first Black artist commissioned to paint a First Lady portrait for the museum.
Amy Sherald. | Photo by Olivia Lifungula, Courtesy Hauser & Wirth
Born in Columbus, Ga., Sherald developed her practice in Baltimore, Md. Today she is based in New York. Her biography succinctly describes the ambitions of her work: “Sherald engages with the history of photography and portraiture, inviting viewers to participate in a more complex debate about accepted notions of race and representation, and to situate Black life in American art.”
“American Sublime” brings together early rarely seen paintings, new works shown for the first time, the prize-winning “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance),” and iconic portraits of Obama and Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old emergency room technician killed by police in her home at the start of the pandemic on March 13, 2020.
“For love, and for country” (2022) will also be on view. The monumental double portrait is Sherald’s interpretation of Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous 1945 photograph of a U.S. Navy sailor kissing a woman in Times Square on “V-J Day,” marking the end of World War II. Her contemporary version replaces the white heterosexual couple with two Black men, making a powerful statement about love, evolving social norms, queer rights, and freedom and safety in public places.
The National Portrait Gallery’s presentation of “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” is curated by Rhea L. Combs, the museum’s director of curatorial affairs. In the exhibition announcement, Combs said the occasion “celebrates a full circle of sorts.” She continued: “Sherald’s work premiered at the museum in 2016, when the artist won first prize in the Portrait Gallery’s triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Her painting then reached a global stage when she unveiled her remarkable portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama in 2018. For the past eight years, Sherald’s art has enthralled viewers with its technical astuteness. The empathy it extends to the individuals in her portraits captivates those who experience the paintings. With this mid-career survey, it is an honor to share with audiences the breadth and depth of Sherald’s practice.” CT
“Amy Sherald: American Sublime” will be on view at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in Washington, D.C., from Sept. 19, 2025-Feb. 22, 2026. The touring exhibition begins at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (Nov. 16, 2024–March 9, 2025) and travels to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (April 9–August 2025), before arriving at NPG
Coinciding with the presentation of “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” at the National Portrait Gallery, “The Outwin 2025: American Portraiture Today” (May 3, 2025-March 1, 2026), the latest edition of the exhibition, which highlights in the finalists in the competition, also opens next year
FIND MORE “Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass” (Dec. 8, 2023-Nov. 26, 2026), a multi-channel film installation from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery is currently on long-term view at the museum
FIND MORE about “UnSeen: Our Past in a New Light, Ken Gonzales-Day and Titus Kaphar” (2018-19) at the National Gallery of Art on Culture Type. Exploring the work of two contemporary artists, the show featured 17 portrait paintings by Titus Kaphar
AMY SHERALD, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, 2018 (oil on linen, 183.2 × 152.7 × 7 cm / 72 1/8 × 60 1/8 × 2 3/4 inches). | National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. © National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Photo by Joseph Hyde, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
AMY SHERALD, “For love, and for country,” 2022 (oil on linen, 313 x 236.5 x 6.4 cm / 123 1/4 x 93 1/8 x 2 1/2 inches). | San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; © Amy Sherald; photo: Joseph Hyde, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
AMY SHERALD, “As Soft as She Is…,” 2022 (oil on linen, 54 x 43 x 2.5 inches / 137.16 x 109.22 x 6.35 cm). | Tate, purchased with funds provided by the Tymure Collection, © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Joseph Hyde
AMY SHERALD, Breonna Taylor, 2020 (oil on linen, 54 × 43 × 2 1/2 inches / 137.2 × 109.2 × 6.4 cm). | Private collection. © Amy Sherald. Photo by Joseph Hyde, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
AMY SHERALD, “A Midsummer Afternoon Dream,” 2021 (oil on canvas, 106 x 101 x 2 ½ inches / 269.24 x 256.54 x 6.35 cm). | Private Collection, © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by 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 x 43 x 2.5 inches / 137.16 x 109.22 x 6.35 cm). | Private collection, Chicago, © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Joseph Hyde
AMY SHERALD, “Precious Jewels by the Sea,” 2019 (oil on canvas, 120 x 108 x 2 ½ inches / 304.8 x 274.32 x 6.35 cm). | Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2020.2, © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo by Joseph Hyde
FIND MORE about Amy Sherald on Instagram and at Hauser & Wirth gallery
BOOKSHELF
Forthcoming in November, “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” will be published to accompany the exhibition. The fully illustrated volume is the first comprehensive monograph of the artist. “Amy Sherald: The World We Make” was published on the occasion Amy Sherald’s first international exhibition at Hauser & Wirth gallery in London. A detail of her monumental painting “For love, and for country” (2022) graces the cover of the book, which includes a conversation between Sherald and Ta-Nehisi Coates. “Amy Sherald” documents her 2018-19 exhibition organized by the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis. Sherald was included in a few group exhibitions where her work graced the cover of the accompanying catalogs. Those volumes include Ekow Eshun’s “Reframing the Black Figure: An Introduction to Contemporary Black Figuration” and “Women Painting Women.” In addition, Sherald’s portrait of Breonna Taylor was featured in “Promise, Witness, Remembrance” at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Ky., and covers the exhibition catalog. Also consider, “The Obama Portraits” and, for children, “Parker Looks Up: An Extraordinary Moment.”
