Amy Sherald shot to superstardom when her portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama debuted in 2018, and now the artist will have a homecoming of sorts at a major museum show at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Opening in September 2025, “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” constitutes the most expansive exhibition of the artist to date. Organized by the San Francisco Museum of Art, the show will debut in California this November before moving to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and later to the Portrait Gallery. It is sure to be a blockbuster, when the dual portraits of Michelle and Barack Obama were unveiled at the Portrait Gallery in 2018, the showing nearly doubled the museum’s attendance.

Amy Sherald in the studio with For love,and
for country (2022). Photo: Kelvin Bulluck. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

The New York-based artist explores the African American experience in the United States through her intimate portraits of Black Americans—primarily women—set against strikingly colorful, minimalist backgrounds. Over the course of her 15-year-long career, Sherald’s paintings have often commemorated the highs and lows of America’s recent history. In addition to the Obama portrait, the exhibition includes her powerful 2020 portrait of Breonna Taylor, created to honor Taylor’s life after she was tragically killed in her Louisville, Kentucky, home. The portrait became a significant symbol in protests across the country and the world, and achieved even greater notice when it was used as the cover for Vanity Fair. Another highlight of the show is the debut of For Love, and for Country (2022), recently acquired for SFMoMA’s permanent collection.

The cover of Vanity Fair‘s September 2020 issue, featuring a portrait of Breonna Taylor by Amy Sherald. Courtesy of Vanity Fair.

Sherald’s work captures Black Americans’ everyday lives, transcending time and place by removing details that could situate her subjects in a specific context. Her process often begins with photographing individuals she meets by chance or in passing, allowing her to transform each subject into a painted canvas that invites viewers to contemplate their complex interiority and stories beyond the visible.

A distinctive aspect of Sherald’s work is her use of a grayscale palette for skin tones, through a process called grisaille—a Renaissance-era technique where paintings are nearly monochromatic. By depicting her subjects in shades of grey, Sherald emphasizes race as a social construct rather than an absolute identity, challenging viewers to engage with the individuals she portrays without assumptions based on skin color. This technique has become a hallmark of her style, positioning her work as an exploration of identity, representation, and selfhood within contemporary America.

Amy Sherald, Welfare Queen (2012). Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth, ©Amy Sherald.

Curated by Rhea L. Combs, director of curatorial affairs at the National Portrait Gallery, American Sublime is a celebration of Sherald’s precise technical skill and her ability to convey emotional depth through her art. “The Portrait Gallery’s presentation of American Sublime celebrates a full circle of sorts,” Combs states, reflecting on Sherald’s journey as the first woman and the first African-American the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the museum in 2016 to becoming a globally recognized artist represented by Hauser & Wirth, with her work in public collections from Baltimore Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, The Columbus Museum, Long Museum, Shanghai and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, amongst many more. Combs emphasizes Sherald’s capability to draw viewers in through both her technical acumen and the empathy that radiates from her portraits, prompting audiences to consider her subjects’ identities and experiences in an entirely new way.

Accompanying the exhibition is a new publication by SFMOMA, in association with Yale University Press, which chronicles Sherald’s career, artistic influences, and significant impact on the contemporary art landscape.

Amy Sherald: American Sublime is a landmark exhibition that represents Sherald’s most ambitious exploration of American identity, history, and portraiture to date. Her work places Black experiences firmly within the canon of American art, challenging conventional portrayals and offering an intimate view of contemporary life. This mid-career survey underscores Sherald’s influence, blending empathy, historical awareness, and a visionary approach to portraiture that continues to captivate audiences.

“Amy Sherald: American Sublime” will be on view at SFMoMA from November 16, 2024 to March 9, 2025; at the Whitney Museum from April 9 to August 3, 2025; and at the Portrait Gallery from September 19, 2025 to February 22, 2026.