Skip to content
Exhibition

Amy Sherald: American Sublime

November 16, 2024–March 9, 2025
Floor 4
Tickets
This is a surcharged exhibition: $10 weekdays and $12 weekends/holidays. Free for members. Read the FAQ webpage for more details.

“The artist known for her portraits of Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor is showing how much else she can do.”
— The New York Times

Amy Sherald: American Sublime invites you to breathe. Come and be taken in by the colors, shapes, and forms painted by one of America’s defining contemporary portraitists.

This exhibition presents nearly 50 of Amy Sherald’s luminous paintings, including her iconic portraits of Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor, poetic early works, and new works on view for the first time.

Sherald’s artworks convey the quiet power in everyday people and invite viewers to participate in a more complex debate about accepted notions of American identity.

Amy Sherald portrait; photo: Olivia Lifungula, courtesy Hauser & Wirth

“I really have this deep belief that images can change the world.”

— Amy Sherald

In the spirit of great American artists like Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, and Kerry James Marshall, Sherald’s works reframe our understanding of American culture. American Sublime is organized thematically, with each gallery presenting a crucial idea in her work and explaining her detailed approach to making paintings. Learn more about Sherald’s central themes.

Exhibition Preview

A painting of two people embracing and kissing, both with dark skin and dressed as sailors, set against a vibrant blue background.
A painted portrait of Michelle Obama wearing a patterned dress and sitting against a light blue background, resting her chin on her hand and looking forward with a calm expression.
Amy Sherald, For Love, and for Country, 2022; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, purchase, by exchange, through a gift of Helen and Charles Schwab; © Amy Sherald; photo: Don Ross
Amy Sherald, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, 2018; National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. The National Portrait Gallery is grateful to the following lead donors for their support of the Obama portraits: Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg; Judith Kern and Kent Whealy; Tommie L. Pegues and Donald A. Capoccia. Courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.
Amy Sherald, A Golden Afternoon, 2016; private collection; © Amy Sherald; photo: Joseph Hyde, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Amy Sherald, Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between, 2018; Baltimore Museum of Art, purchase with exchange funds from the Pearlstone Family Fund and partial gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.; © Amy Sherald; photo: Joseph Hyde, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Amy Sherald, Breonna Taylor, 2020; The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, Museum, purchase made possible by a grant from the Ford Foundation; and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, purchase made possible by a gift from Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg/The Hearthland Foundation; © Amy Sherald; photo: Joseph Hyde, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Amy Sherald, Kingdom, 2022; The Broad Museum; © Amy Sherald; photo: Joseph Hyde, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
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; private collection, courtesy Monique Meloche Gallery; © Amy Sherald; photo: Joseph Hyde, courtesy the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery
Amy Sherald, They Call Me Redbone, But I'd Rather Be Strawberry Shortcake, 2009; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., gift of Steven Scott, Baltimore, in honor of the artist and the 25th anniversary of National Museum of Women in the Arts; © Amy Sherald; photo: Lee Stalsworth, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Amy Sherald, Precious Jewels by the Sea, 2019; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; © Amy Sherald; photo: Joseph Hyde, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Amy Sherald, A Bucket Full of Treasures (Papa Gave Me Sunshine to Put in My Pocket), 2020; private collection; © Amy Sherald; photo: Joseph Hyde, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Amy Sherald, Mama Has Made the Bread (How Things Are Measured), 2018; private collection; © Amy Sherald; photo: Joseph Hyde, courtesy Phillips
Amy Sherald, A Midsummer Afternoon Dream, 2021; private collection; © Amy Sherald; photo: Joseph Hyde, courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Lead support for Amy Sherald: American Sublime is provided by the Mimi and Peter Haas Fund and Diana Nelson and John Atwater.

Presenting support is provided by the Evelyn D. Haas Exhibition Fund.

Major support is provided by the Ford Foundation, Sir Deryck and Lady Va Maughan, KHR McNeely Family Fund, Katie and Matt Paige, Stephanie and Mark Robinson, and Shelagh Rohlen, in memory of Tom Rohlen.

Ford Foundation logo

Significant support is provided by Maria Manetti Shrem and Jan Shrem, Jessica Moment, Deborah and Kenneth Novack, and Sonja Hoel Perkins and Jonathan Perkins.

Meaningful support is provided by Alka and Ravin Agrawal, Dolly and George Chammas, Jessica and Matt Farron, Maryellen and Frank Herringer, Lowery Family Fund, Alison Pincus, Komal Shah and Gaurav Garg, Gary Steele and Steven Rice, Susan Swig, and Barbara and Stephan Vermut.

Meaningful support is also provided by Fashion Partner Max Mara.

Header image: Amy Sherald, For Love, and for Country, 2022; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, purchase, by exchange, through a gift of Helen and Charles Schwab; © Amy Sherald; photo: Don Ross