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KEY CONTEXT Amy Sherald has cited a wide-range of influences on her work, including 5
the writers Octavia Butler, bell hooks, and Ralph Waldo Emerson; the painter Salvador Dali;
filmmakers Tim Burton and Wes Anderson; and late nineteenth-century photographs of African
Americans. “I really see myself working within the tradition of American Realism,” Sherald Kathryn Schulz
has said. “I look at America’s heart — people, landscapes, and cityscapes — and I see it as an
opportunity to add to an American art narrative that was written by painters who were mostly
white and male . . . I paint because I am looking for myself in art history and in the world.”

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama Amy Sherald Oil on linen 2018 National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. The National Portrait Gallery is grateful to

Donald A. Capoccia the following lead donors for their support of the Obama portraits: Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg; Judith Kern and Kent Whealy; Tommie L. Pegues and

2018
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