Archiving Everyday Life: Amy Sherald and Representation in American Art
Amy Sherald, Four Ways of Being, 2024. Courtesy the artist. 
Amy Sherald
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Online, via Zoom
Open to all members
Wednesday, March 12, 12 pm
Thursday, March 20, 6 pm
Tuesday, April 1, 12 pm
This online member talk with Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow Jacqueline Cofield explores how Amy Sherald’s work operates within the traditions of American Realism while simultaneously interrogating its historical omissions and misrepresentations of Black presence in visual culture. In advance of the exhibition Amy Sherald: American Sublime, consider how the artist’s use of color and composition, quiet yet commanding figuration, and intentional focus on everyday Black life speak to absences in the archive, situating her practice within a broader lineage of artists who have sought to redefine representation.
By examining Sherald’s portraits alongside artists such as Barkley L. Hendricks and Kerry James Marshall, as well as American Realists like Edward Hopper, this talk will investigate how her work reframes visibility, power, and identity in contemporary art. Challenging conventional narratives within portraiture and broader art history, Sherald’s approach to realism is both an extension and subversion of the traditional genre, creating new space for understanding the everyday lives of Black Americans within the larger discourse of American art.
Jacqueline M. Cofield (she/her) is a Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art and a recent doctoral alum of Columbia University’s Teachers College. Her research amplifies underrepresented voices in art history, connecting culture, learning, and societal transformation. Cofield’s award-winning dissertation, Beyond Beauty: Black Women Artists’ Epistemologies and Aesthetic Praxes, examines the perspectives and practices of Black women artists and their curricular implications. A documentary filmmaker, podcaster, educator, and curator, she engages in transdisciplinary work across art history, Black studies, and museum education. Cofield’s dedication to nurturing global artistic dialogues is evident in her curatorial and museum training at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Her work emphasizes inclusivity, cultural diplomacy, and the transformative power of the arts, inspiring and educating diverse audiences worldwide. Cofield is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Hunter College.
