CT Icons #1: Amy Sherald on success, family and the Obama’s

CT is proud to present CT Icons, a new weekly web series. Our favorite, legendary Dutch artists introduce us to their most inspiring and iconic international friends and colleagues, and talk about their work, personal lives and the power of art.

Follow us on Instagram @Compagnietheater to see every episode, or check here every Thursday evening.

In this first episode of CT Icons, Dutch artist and playwright Ira Kip talks to her friend Amy Sherald:

Amy Sherald is an artist and painter living in Baltimore, United States. Sherald was the first woman to win the Smithsonian’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition grand prize with her 2016 entry Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance). Former First Lady Michelle Obama tapped Sherald to paint her official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., which was unveiled in early 2018. “I’m painting the paintings that I want to see in museums,” she said. “And I’m hopefully presenting them in a way that’s universal enough that they become representative of something different than just a black body on a canvas.”

Ira Kip is an artist and playwright working and living in Amsterdam and New York City. In 2015 she directed the well known play Vagina Monologues, with which she toured prisons in New York. The tour was filmed, for which the film makers received an NY Emmy nomination. In 2016 she started working on her new play Shrew Her, based on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. This play premiered to raving reviews at Compagnietheater, after which it was played for several years. She is currently developing a new play called Skyscrapers.

Check out the other CT Icons videos on our Lifestreams page.