As soft as she is...

AMY SHERALD (B. 1973)

As soft as she is...

signed and numbered in pencil (on the lower edge)

70-color screenprint

image: 40 1/4 x 32 inches (102.2 x 81.3 cm)

sheet: 45 1/4 x 37 inches (114.9 x 94 cm)

framed: 50 1/2 x 42 1/2 inches (128.3 x 108 cm)

Executed in 2023. This is from an edition of 35 plus 10 artist's proofs, 3 hors commerce, 3 printer's proofs, and 1 bon à tirer.

PROVENANCE:

Hauser & Wirth, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner

"As soft as she is…. is a large and vibrant portrait by a wildly popular contemporary artist who uses vibrant colors, bold backgrounds and simple blocking to evoke a strong and telling portrait of her subject." -Martha Stewart

NOTES:

This stunning print is based on the oil painting by the same name, which is in the collection of the Tate, London and currently on view at the artist’s solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. 

Sherald (B. 1973) presents Black subjects with their skin rendered in grisaille, or grey tones, which has a historical precedent in painting since at least the fourteenth century. Utilizing this art historical trope is a deliberate choice to divert focus away from the sitter’s race and towards their compelling interiority. The artist often uses models that she encounters by happenstance in her daily activities.  “When I choose my models,” the artist explains, “it’s something that only I can see in that person, in their face and their eyes, that’s so captivating about them.”

Sherald is the first African American woman to receive a presidential portrait commission from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. in 2018 when she depicted former First Lady Michelle Obama. Her work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Embassy of the United States, Dakar, Senegal; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., and Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina.