All About Amy Sherald, Obama Portrait Artist and Root 100 Honoree

In 2018, Amy Sherald found herself in the spotlight after she was chosen to paint former First Lady Michelle Obama’s official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery. Since then, the Georgia-born artist, who earned her BFA from Clark Atlanta University and her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, has had her work featured in some of the world’s most renowned museums, including the Whitney in New York City and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Although Sherald uses a unique grayscale technique for their skin tone, her subjects are everyday Black Americans styled in bright clothing who stare at the viewers and force them to engage again and again.

Here are a few things you should know about artist and 2025 The Root 100 honoree Amy Sherald.

It Starts With a Photo

Besides her paintings of Obama and Breonna Taylor, Sherald’s usual subjects are everyday Black Americans. She choses subjects whose energy resonates with her and paints from a photo she takes of them in her studio.

“After I randomly come across some person that I’d like to say that my energy recognizes their energy or there’s something there, they come to the studio and either I already have a vision in my head of what I want to create or they are the walking vision of what I want to make,” she told “60 Minutes.”

Her Paintings Aren’t Passive

@quitakills

As an artist, Amy Sherald gives Black life the spotlight with softness, pride, and surreal beauty. Her latest show American Sublime inserts Black life into the American visual canon where it was historically excluded or stereotyped. I especially love her use of greyscale for the skin tone to while still creating through a distinctly black lens. Her work reminds us we are the American sublime. I, too, sing America. America Sublime is black culture elevated and it’s simply amazing 🖼️ Check it out at @Whitney Museum until August 2025 ✨ #fy #amysherald #art #portrait #blackamerica #whitneymuseum #thingstodoinnyc #artexhibit

♬ original sound – Karl 🍉

Sherald’s use of vibrant colors helps her art come to life. Her subjects are depicted wearing colorful clothing against bright backgrounds, and they are always looking directly at the viewer. Sherald says she paints that way intentionally and has the the paintings hung directly at eye level in order to force the viewer to engage with the subject.

“My figures are present. They’re not passively painted,” she told PBS NewsHour. “They are standing there ready to be gazed upon, but also to gaze back at you. And in that interaction, I think we should find our humanity in each other.”

She Had a Heart Transplant

Sherald had a terrifying health scare at age 39 when she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure while training for a triathlon. After waiting months, she underwent a heart transplant in December 2012, when she received the heart of Kristin, a young woman who passed away from a drug overdose. Sherald says finds small ways to honor Kristin, including adding a heart to the end of her signature.

“I have moments where I think of her, and usually when I’m doing something that I wouldn’t have been able to do,” she said in an interview with “60 Minutes.” “Whenever that happens, I have on my Instagram account, I hashtag it ‘Adventures of Kristin and Amy’ so that I can mark all of the big moments and include her in those moments.  

She Stood Up Against Censorship

@whitneymuseum

“Trans bodies need to be witnessed.” In a recent program at the Museum, artist Amy Sherald explained how her painting Trans Forming Liberty came to be. Head to the link in our bio to watch the full conversation that also features writer and cultural commentator Touré, curator Rujeko Hockley, and artist and activist Arewà Basit Psst: There are just a few days left to see the exhibition! American Sublime closes this Sunday, August 10.

♬ original sound – Whitney Museum

Sherald made news in July when she backed out of a solo show that was scheduled at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Although she would have been the first Black contemporary artist to have an exhibit there, she cancelled her show after being told that the museum would not include one of her paintings, “Trans Forming Liberty,” which depicts a transgender woman holding a torch in the posture of the Statue of Liberty, because President Donald Trump would not like it.

According to the New York Times, the museum suggested replacing the work in question with a video of reactions to the painting and people discussing transgender issues, an idea Sherald turned down because it would include anti-trans points of view.

“When I understood a video would replace the painting, I decided to cancel,” she said. “The video would have opened up for debate the value of trans visibility, and I was opposed to that being a part of the ‘American Sublime’ narrative.”