Michelle Obama’s portrait was painted in 2016 by Georgia-born artist Amy Sherald for The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington.
The former first lady is shown in the portrait, which was finished in 2018, in Sherald’s signature style, with a grey skin tone, a simple backdrop (in this case, a plain blue one), and a stylish outfit that perfectly captures the sitter’s personality.
Obama’s abstract-printed, high-neck maxi dress by American fashion designer Michelle Smith was inspired by Piet Mondrian’s geometric works.
Discussing her Smithsonian piece in a recent interview, Sherald called Obama an icon. “She represents for me and a lot of women what 21st-Century womanhood looks like,” she says. The painting catapulted the artist into a new realm.
Although the 49-year-old is frequently portrayed as having achieved stardom overnight, in reality, her stardom is the result of years of dedication to honing her trade.
“People think it’s this meteoric rise, but in fact, she’s been working for 20 plus years,” says US art historian Jenni Sorkin, who has written an essay on the artist for the catalogue of Sherald’s first European show – at Hauser & Wirth in London titled Amy Sherald: The World We Make.
According to Sorkin, Sherald is also well-known for her posthumous picture of Breonna Taylor, 26, which was painted in 2020 for the cover of the September issue of Vanity Fair and was dubbed “the most important painting of the 21st Century” by Forbes.
Taylor was murdered by police in her Kentucky home, a tragic event that helped to inspire the global Black Lives Matter rallies the same year.
“Sherald gained extreme prominence with these two major commissions, but the first was the Michelle Obama one,” Sorkin adds. “Being chosen for that put her on a national stage in a different way than she might have been otherwise.”
To read our blog on “Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s art collection worth $1.6 billion,” click here
