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Portraits of American First Ladies typically don't tell us much about the personality of the person. Maybe we can see a steely determination in her eyes or get a sense of her style, but we don’t learn much about who she is. Amy Sherald’s portrait of Michelle Obama changed all of that by focusing on the essence of the subject.
You can now see this iconic portrait and many other renowned works by Sherald in a new exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art located in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. The exhibition, titled “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” is open April 9-August 10, 2025. With nearly 50 paintings, it’s the most comprehensive exhibition of the American artist’s work, which includes a portrait of Breonna Taylor, as well as paintings that center everyday Black Americans.
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Sherald became a household name after she was invited to create the first official portrait of first lady Michelle Obama in 2017. She photographed Obama in natural light where she sat in a geometric-print gown with her hand resting beneath her chin.
“The painting breaks significantly with the conventions of state portraiture, presenting Obama as gracious and comfortable, but also inward-looking and self-contained,” the museum explained. “The latter is an especially notable achievement, given that Obama's movements, statements, and appearance were and still are subject to endless public scrutiny.”
Seeing the larger-than-life portrait in person is incredibly stirring. Though the piece may break with portraiture tradition, it follows Sherald’s own artistic conventions. She focuses on realism in her pieces, with shadows and folds in clothing looking so real, it’s as if you could reach out and feel the fabric. However, rather than painting skin tones in more realistic natural brown tones, she uses gray hues to de-emphasize viewers’ exclusive focus on her subject’s race and instead draw attention to their individuality and interiority.
Sherald’s painting of the late Breonna Taylor has also earned acclaim. Vanity Fair magazine commissioned Sherald to create this portrait of Taylor in 2020 after she was killed by police officers in Louisville who forced entry into her home. Her death highlighted the disproportionate levels of police violence Black Americans face.
To create the painting, Sherald met with Taylor’s mother Tamika Palmer to learn about what her daughter was like. Given her love of fashion, Sherald had a dress specially designed for her posthumous subject. In the portrait, Taylor wears a flowing blue dress and a small gold cross around her neck. Sherald also placed an engagement ring on her finger to memorialize the relationship between Taylor and her partner Kenneth Walker while acknowledging the future that was taken from them.
“Though she has been known for these two moments, Mrs. Obama and Breonna Taylor’s portraits, she has been a working artist for 25 years,” Rujeko Hockley, the show’s curator, said in a press preview at the museum.
Sherald “really lived the life of an artist,” waitressing for years, working out of a small studio in Baltimore, and traveling to the Whitney wondering about how she'd make her mark, Hockley added.
Hockley presented the show chronologically, starting with the piece “Hangman,” which has not been seen since its debut year in 2007. As the show continues, it chronicles the evolution of Sherald’s work and her use of American iconography—including a tractor, a beach ball, a toy pony, and a teacup—to craft relatable narratives, illuminating each subject’s idiosyncrasies and their unique life experiences.
The show also features new works by Sherald, including “Trans Forming Liberty,” which recasts the Statue of Liberty as a non-binary, trans-femme person, radically redefining this symbol of American freedom. The piece, made in 2024, suggests that the ideal of acceptance must be applied to all citizens, regardless of their gender, sexual orientation or other identifiers.
“I wanted to tell this story as a way to show her progression as an artist.”
“I wanted to tell this story as a way to show her progression as an artist, but also to show her complexity and deepening ambition, deepening commitment to herself as well as to her subjects.”
In addition to seeing Sherald’s work in-person, also don’t miss a video in the exhibition that shows the artist at work in her studio.
“Each is just full of so many stories waiting to be discovered.”
“She has spoken quite beautifully about how important it was to her to paint people who looked like her and to express their individuality and to find in each of those portraits a unique person that we could relate to,” The Whitney's Director Scott Rothkopf told media. “Although many of the paintings are the same scale, the same format, each is just full of so many stories waiting to be discovered.”
“Amy Sherald: American Sublime” is on view April 9-August 10, 2025 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. The museum is free for visitors every Friday evening from 5 to 10pm and on the second Sunday of every month. Be sure to reserve in advance.