Reading the Art World: Sarah Roberts
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Listen to our latest podcast episode featuring Sarah Roberts, curator of the landmark exhibition Amy Sherald: American Sublime, and editor of the accompanying catalog published by Yale University Press in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
In our conversation, Sarah reflects on the distinctive formal and conceptual qualities of Sherald's portraiture—from her considered use of posture and gaze to the symbolic role of clothing, props and settings. She deliberately turns the focus from outward racial identities to her subjects' interior lives. Sarah discusses how these elements in Herald’s paintings operate together to invite a deeper, slower form of looking, where each subject is rendered with quiet dignity and strength.
We discuss the meaning behind the exhibition’s title, "American sublime" in Sherald's work, and how Sherald’s paintings expand our understanding of who deserves to be seen—and remembered—in American art. Sarah Roberts offers insights into her inclusion of Sherald’s portraits of Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor in the exhibition, placing them in the context of the artist’s broader practice and showing how they remain consistent with her vision while subverting conventions of official portraiture..
“I think something similar is at work in Amy's portraiture, the stillness of the bodies, the stillness of the faces creates an expectation that we will bring our own thoughts, preconceptions, associations, to the act of looking.”
– Sarah Roberts
About the Author
Sarah Roberts is Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Joan Mitchell Foundation where she oversees the Foundation's Artwork and Archival Collections and the Joan Mitchell Catalogue Raisonné project. Since 2004, she has served in progressive leadership roles in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the SFMOMA, and since 2020 as Andrew W. Mellon Curator and Head of Painting and Sculpture. A specialist in post-war American art, Roberts has organized significant exhibitions including major presentations of Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Bourgeois, Frank Bowling, and co-curated the Joan Mitchell retrospective that traveled internationally. Roberts holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and Brown University, and has contributed to numerous publications on contemporary art.