February is Black History Month, and @DGNFineArts is pleased to spotlight the pioneering work of Black artists.
Amy Sherald (http://www.amysherald.com/) is an American painter based in Baltimore, Maryland. She is best known for her portrait paintings. Her choices of subjects look to enlarge the genre of American art historical realism by telling African-American stories within their own tradition.
She first came to prominence in 2016 when her painting, Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance), won the National Portrait Gallery's Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. The competition noted that "Sherald creates innovative, dynamic portraits that, through color and form, confront the psychological effects of stereotypical imagery on African-American subjects". She was the first woman to win the competition. Sherald's first solo exhibition, titled "the heart of the matter..." took place in fall 2019 at the Hauser & Wirth gallery in New York City.
The year after Sherald won the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, she was chosen by First Lady Michelle Obama to paint her official portrait. On February 12, 2018 the National Portrait Gallery unveiled the portrait, making Sherald the first African-American woman to paint an official First Lady portrait. The double portrait unveiling ceremony was attended by Barack and Michelle Obama. It was noted that Sherald and Kehinde Wiley, the painter of Barack Obama's portrait, were the first African-American artists to make official presidential portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, and also as artists who each early on prioritized African-American portraiture. Holland Cotter noted in a review that they both blend fact and fiction in their portraiture.
Sherald's portrait of Obama drew high numbers of visitors to the National Portrait Gallery.