Amy Sherald on Her Portrait of Breonna Taylor

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: this portrait, you have decided not to sell off to the highest bidder like you could have done, it’s an amazing thing, but to give it to the public commons, if you like, to make a public statement with it. Tell me why that was important to you.

AMY SHERALD, ARTIST: It was important to me because, you know, it was just something I knew I had to do when I was asked to make this portrait for the cover of Vanity Fair. I had a long conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates about it and I decided it was the right thing to do. And after the cover was revealed, it was sitting in my studio and I was thinking about Louisville and all the unrest that had happened there because Breonna Taylor and I felt like it could be a Balm in Gilead and a way for people to process through art what was happening in the community and maybe find some solace.

AMANPOUR: I want to ask you about the actual painting itself because — and I’m going to, you know, play a little bit in a moment from Ta-Nehisi because I talked to her about this when it was on Vanity Fair’s cover last September. But you obviously had communication with Breonna’s mother, with her family. You chose to do the colors, the dress, the ring. Tell me how you brought her alive and how you got to know her. Because, obviously, it’s the first time you’ve painted somebody who is no longer alive.

SHERALD: Right. The first thing I did was reach out to her mother and I asked her to send me some photographs that really represented Breonna’s personality. And one thing that she said was that Breonna love to get dressed. And so, I know, as a woman, as a young woman, if I was going to be on the cover of Vanity Fair, I would want to feel beautiful. So, the first thing I did was reach out to her mother. I then found a young lady who I used for a painting before to pose for me because she was the same height and the same stature as Breonna. And then I read out to a black female designer in Atlanta Georgia by the name of Jasmine Elder and started a conversation with her about some of the dresses that I was thinking about. And she was so happy to be a part of the project. She sent me five or six dresses and, you know, we ended up using want for that painting. As far as the color, it was the hardest choice I felt like I’ve ever had to make in any of my painting. It took so long. It was three or four days of me — you know, I think I saw so many colors that by the end of the day I didn’t know what I see, what I like and what I didn’t like. And I remember walking into the backroom down the hallway from my studio and I was just like, Breonna, what color do you want this dress to be.