Sunday in the Art Room SITAR

 Welcome to 

SITAR is about ANYTHING art. Your art, someone else's art, writing, photography, the art of cooking, the art of sewing and textiles. Sharing historical art, street art, a story about art. Do you have a question or need help with art? Write a blog post and link it up here. We will all try to help with it. My only rule is that if someone asks for critique it must be done with generosity and consideration. 

This is a place of learning, encouragement and inspiration.

 

I have tried to write this post 3 times and each time I felt lost in what I was trying to communicate. Then, I found 

Amy Sherald 

Amy Sherald is an American artist who's know for large scale portraits. She painted the official portrait of Michelle Obama and is represented by 

Hauser & Wirth Gallery. 

 

Born in Georgia, August 30th 1973. 

At first I thought I was just going to write about Amy and her life and how she got started bla bla bla.

It turns out that this amazing woman/artist stands for what she believes in.

She creates mostly in portraits depicting African Americans in everyday life. Using staged photographs of her subjects she paints in a style of simplified realism. 

In 2016, Sherald became the first woman as well as the first African American ever to win the National Portrait Gallery's Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition with her painting, Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance). 

The next year, she and Kehinde Wiley

 were selected by former President Barack Obama (Wiley) and former First Lady Michelle Obama (Sherald) to paint their official portraits, becoming the first African Americans ever to receive presidential portrait commissions from the National Portrait Gallery. The portraits were unveiled together in 2018 and have significantly increased attendance at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. 

In December 2020, Sherald's piece The Bathers (2015) was sold at auction for $4,265,000, nearly 30 times the pre-sale estimate. 

 On November 17, 2021, Welfare Queen (2012) sold for $3.9M in a Phillips New York auction and brought to light the need for more governance around resale royalties for artists. However, that hasn't happened in the US to date.

I'm very impressed with this artist and how far she has come in the art world, especially in the US. Still, my profound respect and admiration for her, is when she pulled her art exhibit "American Sublime" from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in July of 2025. 

The decision, by a high-profile artist, came as the "things" administration has railed against “wokeness” in federally funded museums and cut funding for local cultural institutions across the country, putting artists and their work in the spotlight.

Ms. Sherald said, "She was told there were discussions about removing one of her pieces from the exhibition – a painting that depicts a transgender woman as the Statue of Liberty." According to a statement obtained by the New York Times, Ms. Sherald said, the Smithsonian had proposed replacing the piece with a video of people discussing it, which she says would have “opened up for debate the value of trans visibility.”

She stated, "At a time when transgender people are being legislated against, silenced, and endangered across our nation, silence is not an option." 

 

The cancellation meant that the National Portrait Gallery lost the chance to present its first ever solo exhibition by a contemporary black woman artist. 

"Trans Forming Liberty" is a 10-foot-plus portrait featuring a transgender woman in a pose reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty. 

The exhibition, which was scheduled for September 2025, was canceled and later moved to the Baltimore Museum of Art. The show opened on 

November 2, 2025, and is scheduled to run through April 5, 2026. 

Due to the Baltimore Museum of Art's independence from federal funding there was no backlash from the "thing's" administration. The show was a massive hit, completely selling out by late February 2026. It drew approximately 84,000 visitors over its five-month run, breaking attendance records for any exhibition held at the museum since 2000. 

BMA Director Asma Naeem actively recruited Sherald to ensure her work, including, "Trans Forming Liberty" could be show as originally intended. While the White House had previously celebrated Sherald's Smithsonian withdrawal and criticized the painting as "divisive and ideological" there were no reported attempts by the administration to interfere with the BMA's private operations. 

There were at least 12 artists in the US that pulled art exhibits, concerts and dances due to the "thing's" suppression on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and "woke"  

In other words his hatred for all people except himself.

(I had to throw that in)

Before Covid I was asked to enter 3 pieces of "Shock Art" I created these.

This is a 3-D hand I created. The pills are vitamins and I broke the needle off the syringe.  

When I brought the art in to hang you would have thought I brought the devil with me. I had to fight the committee (of which I was on) to show the art. I won. There were other artists too but for what ever reason their art was, I guess not as shocking. 

As artist, well know or not we must create what we feel, what we want and who we are and then stand by our creations. 

 

Don't forget this Friday is the day to show your FFO Challenge art

I hope you enjoyed meeting 

Amy Sherald

Nicole 

 

Sited:

Hauser and Wirth Gayety , wikipedia, Christian Science Monitor