Black artist who painted Michelle Obama painted Breonna Taylor for ‘Vanity Fair’ cover
EEW Magazine Online // Black Lives Matter // Breonna Taylor
Amy Sherald, known for painting Michelle Obama for the National Portrait Gallery in 2018 has painted Breonna Taylor for the September cover of Vanity Fair magazine.
The artist who in 2016 became the first woman and first African American to win the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition talked to the magazine about the deceased 26-year-old and the experience of bringing her image to life in the oil-on-linen portrait.
“She is a sister, a daughter, and a hard worker,” said Sherald of Taylor killed March 13 in her Louisville, KY home during a botched police raid. “Those are the kinds of people that I am drawn towards.”
In order to complete the work of art that is getting rave reviews online, Sherald was required to switch up her process which usually includes taking a picture of her subject. Since Taylor would not be able to sit for Sherald, according to Vanity Fair, she “found a young woman with similar physical attributes, studied Taylor’s hairstyles and fashion choices, and drew inspiration from things she learned about the young woman—that she had been a frontline worker in the battle against COVID-19; that her boyfriend had been about to propose marriage; that she was self-possessed, brave, loving, loved.”
“She sees you seeing her. The hand on the hip is not passive, her gaze is not passive. She looks strong!” Sherald said. “I wanted this image to stand as a piece of inspiration to keep fighting for justice for her. When I look at the dress, it kind of reminds me of Lady Justice.”
Atlanta-based fashion designer Jasmine Elder of JIBRI created the dress special to the cover.
“When thinking about what she was going to wear, I wanted Breonna to like it,” Sherald explained. “I wanted her family to look and say, I can see my daughter and sister in this.”
“Painting someone posthumously,” as Sherald describes it, was no easy feat. “I wanted it to feel ethereal but grounded at the same time,” the painter said, though she initially had trouble deciding upon the color of the dress.
“‘Breonna, what color do you want this dress to be? Please, tell me what color you want this dress to be,’” Sherald said before settling upon a shade that calls to mind Taylor’s March birthstone, the aquamarine.
“The color that I chose almost had a resplendence to it. The monochromatic color allows you to really focus on her face. The whole painting really becomes about her,” she said.
Vanity Fair noted, “There are other painstaking, heartbreaking details: the gold cross on a chain necklace; the engagement ring Taylor would never get to wear, on her left hand… This is Sherald’s nod to Taylor’s future and how her life was taken from her.”
While Sherald is getting widespread praise and accolades, she didn’t take on the project for her own benefit. “I made this portrait for her family,” she said. “I mean, of course I made it for Vanity Fair, but the whole time I was thinking about her family.”
