By Lucy Komisar

Amy Sherald’s exhibit at the Whitney is a collection of portraits of people who are black but who could be anyone from the nature of the lives they project: a worker, a tractor driver, a lady with a bicycle, an (imagined?) equestrian. And Michele Obama, which is what got Sherald some fame.

The faces are flat, the flesh colors are black and cool. Sherald, born 1993 in Columbus, GA, shows what black people would look like sans racism. Workers. Doing sports. Being smartly dressed women. And three people in a neighborhood. Like the rest of her work, realistic but hinting at the fantasy her other works suggest. (She also has a painting of Breonna Taylor.)

Photos of paintings by Lucy Komisar.

The Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, New York City, Amy Sherald exhibit opened April 9, 2025, closes Aug 10, 2025.