January 26, 2026
Award-Winning Painter Amy Sherald Signs With CAA Talent Agency
Award-winning portraitist Amy Sherald has new backing as part of the Creative Artists Agency.
Amy Sherald, the acclaimed artist behind the official portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama, is taking her work to new heights after signing with Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
The news of Sherald’s signing with CAA broke on Jan. 21, marking another high-profile crossover between the art world and Hollywood, Art News reports. The Columbus, Georgia, native has continued to rise in prominence since being commissioned by the former first lady in 2018 to paint her official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
The portrait is rich with symbolism, showing Obama in grayscale against a pale blue background, her chin resting thoughtfully on her hand, and wearing a checkered Milly dress by Michelle Smith, inspired by the vibrant, abstract quilts created by generations of African American women in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. While unconventional for an official national portrait, it showcases Sherald’s signature style of capturing intimate, tender depictions of Black American life.
Since 2018, Sherald has been represented globally by the Hauser & Wirth gallery. Her work is featured in major public collections around the world, including the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, LACMA, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Tate Gallery in the UK.
With an MFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA in painting from Clark-Atlanta University, Sherald has earned historic recognition, becoming the first woman and first African American to win the grand prize in the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. In 2017, Sherald received the Anonymous Was A Woman Award, followed by the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award in 2018. Last year, she was honored with the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal, Harvard University’s highest distinction in African and African American studies.
In 2025, she was set to become the first Black contemporary artist to receive a solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. However, Sherald decided to cancel the show after learning her painting Trans Forming Liberty—depicting a Black transgender Statue of Liberty—might be removed, due to Smithsonian leadership attempting to avoid President Trump’s threats to withhold federal funding over works his administration deemed “divisive.”
Sherald’s addition to the CAA adds to the agency’s growing roster of renowned artists, including Arthur Jafa and Julien Schnabel.
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