Episode No. 379 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Amy Sherald and curator Iria Candela.
The Spelman College Museum of Fine Art is showing “Amy Sherald,” an exhibition of recent paintings, through May 18. The exhibition was organized by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and curated by its director, Lisa Melandri. The exhibition catalogue was published by CAM. Amazon offers it for $16.
For 15 years the Baltimore-based Amy Sherald has been making portraits of African Americans. Initially her work included a touch of magic, but in the last few years she’s pared her approach down to a smooth, intense realism. In 2016 Sherald was the winner of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. While her canvases have typically featured average folk, last year she became famous for her 2018 portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama, which is in the NPG collection. Sherald did her undergraduate work at Clark Atlanta University, but took her painting classes at Spelman.
On the second segment, Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Iria Candela discusses “Lucio Fontana: On the Threshold,” a retrospective of the Argentine-Italian artist. The exhibition is primarily on view at the Met Breuer through April 14, but Fontana environments are also on view at the Met’s Fifth Avenue building at the El Museo del Barrio. The catalogue was published by the Met and is distributed by Yale University Press. Amazon offers it for $42.
Air date: February 7, 2019.
Amy Sherald, Well Prepared and Maladjusted, 2008.
Amy Sherald, The Rabbit in the Hat, 2009.
Amy Sherald, Hangman, 2007.
Amy Sherald, The Fairest of the Not So Fair, 2008.
Amy Sherald, Equilibrium, 2012.
Amy Sherald, Planes, rockets, and the spaces in between, 2018.
Amy Sherald, Innocent You, Innocent Me, 2016.
Amy Sherald, What’s precious inside of him does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence (All American), 2017.
Amy Sherald, Mother and Child, 2016.
Amy Sherald, The Make Believer (Monet’s Garden), 2016.
Amy Sherald, Saint Woman, 2015.
Amy Sherald, Grand Dame Queenie, 2013.
Amy Sherald, A clear unspoken granted magic, 2017.
Amy Sherald, Listen, You a Wonder. You a City of a Woman. You Got a Geography of your Own., 2016.
The Modern Art Notes Podcast 
‘Makes me want to paint. Sherald’s delicate placement of bright hues, floral patterns and sometimes geometrical designs against stark backgrounds is visually compelling. And to paraphrase the verse in Proverbs, Sherald’s gift has “made room for her.” We are blessed to have her amazing detail-precise portraits exhibited in our community. I plan to view the exhibit at least one more time. To me her subjects’ eyes are more than windows to their souls. They speak.
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Always a great interview. Thanks for your work Tyler !
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