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The Wary Gaze of Amy Sherald


A majestic new show at the Whitney features the artist’s gift for portraiture that seethes with subtleties.

I remember setting eyes on her submission resting against the wall of a long hallway: Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance), a medium-size portrait of a young Black girl with slate-gray skin and a no-nonsense gaze outfitted in a simple polka-dot dress. She wears white gloves, raising an oversize Alice in Wonderland teacup against a blue background that squishes the figure forward as if she were in bas-relief. In 2020, amid the mass protests following the murder of George Floyd, Sherald was commissioned by Vanity Fair to portray Breonna Taylor.

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amy sherald