Artist Amy Sherald to be Honored as 2023 Woman of Consequence

The Howard P. Colhoun Family Woman of Consequence Award, named in honor of a loyal Bryn Mawr volunteer leader, inspires the next generation of changemakers by celebrating and supporting women who have used their voices and actions to make positive contributions to the building of a more equitable and just world. “Leadership not only comes from experience but seeing others do it well,” Howard “Pete” Colhoun P’82 ‘84 ‘92, Bryn Mawr trustee emeritus, has said of supporting this initiative. Previous recipients have been Rebecca Corbett P’05, Investigations Editor at The New York Times, and Dr. Redonda G. Miller P’23, President, The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Sherald will visit The Bryn Mawr School in late April to meet with Upper School students and arts faculty. The Howard P. Colhoun Family Woman of Consequence Award will be presented during a private event in the evening, featuring a moderated conversation between Sherald and Christopher Bedford P’27, 30, Helen and Charles Schwab Director, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 

Born in Columbus, Georgia, and now based in the New York City area, Amy Sherald documents contemporary African American experience in the United States through arresting, otherworldly figurative paintings. Sherald engages with the history of photography and portraiture, inviting viewers to participate in a more complex debate about accepted notions of race and representation, and to situate Black life centrally in American art. 

  

Sherald received her MFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art and BA in painting from Clark-Atlanta University. Sherald was the first woman and first African-American to ever receive the grand prize in the 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.; she also received the 2017 Anonymous Was A Woman award and the 2019 Smithsonian Ingenuity Award. In 2018, Sherald was selected by First Lady Michelle Obama to paint her portrait as an official commission for the National Portrait Gallery. 

Sherald’s work is held in public collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, MA; the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Embassy of the United States, Dakar, Senegal; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC; and the Long Museum, Shanghai, China.

“I believe in the transformative power of education so I am thrilled to be receiving this honor from Bryn Mawr and to participate in a legacy of generations of female empowerment,” Sherald said.