by Jeroslyn JoVonn
January 26, 2026
Award-winning portraitist Amy Sherald has new backing as a part of the Artistic Artists Company.
Amy Sherald, the acclaimed artist behind the official portrait of former first girl Michelle Obama, is taking her work to new heights after signing with Artistic Artists Company (CAA).
The information of Sherald’s signing with CAA broke on Jan. 21, marking one other high-profile crossover between the artwork world and Hollywood, Artwork Information studies. The Columbus, Georgia, native has continued to rise in prominence since being commissioned by the previous first girl in 2018 to color her official portrait for the Nationwide Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
The portrait is wealthy with symbolism, displaying Obama in grayscale in opposition to a pale blue background, her chin resting thoughtfully on her hand, and carrying a checkered Milly costume by Michelle Smith, impressed by the colourful, summary quilts created by generations of African American girls in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Whereas unconventional for an official nationwide portrait, it showcases Sherald’s signature fashion of capturing intimate, tender depictions of Black American life.
Since 2018, Sherald has been represented globally by the Hauser & Wirth gallery. Her work is featured in main public collections world wide, together with the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Artwork, LACMA, the Museum of High-quality Arts Boston, the Nasher Museum of Artwork in Durham, the San Francisco Museum of Fashionable Artwork, the Whitney Museum of American Artwork, and the Tate Gallery within the UK.
With an MFA in portray from the Maryland Institute School of Artwork and a BA in portray from Clark-Atlanta College, Sherald has earned historic recognition, changing into the primary lady and first African American to win the grand prize within the Nationwide Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competitors. In 2017, Sherald obtained the Nameless Was A Girl Award, adopted by the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award in 2018. Final yr, she was honored with the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal, Harvard College’s highest distinction in African and African American research.
In 2025, she was set to turn into the primary Black modern artist to obtain a solo exhibition on the Nationwide Portrait Gallery. Nevertheless, Sherald determined to cancel the present after studying her portray Trans Forming Liberty—depicting a Black transgender Statue of Liberty—is likely to be eliminated, resulting from Smithsonian management trying to keep away from President Trump’s threats to withhold federal funding over works his administration deemed “divisive.”
Sherald’s addition to the CAA provides to the company’s rising roster of famend artists, together with Arthur Jafa and Julien Schnabel.
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