Hope Is the Thing with Feathers (The Little Bird)

2021

Hope Is the Thing with Feathers (The Little Bird), 2021. Amy Sherald (American, b. 1973). Color screenprint; sheet: 104.8 x 94 cm (41 1/4 x 37 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund 2021.173 © Amy Sherald Amy Sherald is known for her distinctive style of portraiture that presents Black figures with grisaille (or gray) skin tones, inviting consideration of skin as a signifier. This print, the second made by the artist, reinterprets a painting of the same title. Both depict dancers from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, founded in 1958 to combine modern dance and African American culture. The subject appears with a casual pose and assertive gaze that align with the artist’s goal, in her words, to “paint black people just being people.” The title of this print references an 1891 verse by American poet Emily Dickinson.