Amy Sherald and Calida Rawles in conversation at Spelman College
On Tuesday, September 1, 2026, The Atlanta University Center Art History + Curatorial Studies will host its first Distinguished Lecture Series of the academic year featuring Atlanta University Center alumni artists Amy Sherald (CAU’97) and Calida Rawles (Spelman College C’98) at Spelman College. The artists will discuss their concurrent exhibitions on view in Atlanta and their exciting career pathways.
The conversation will be moderated by Dr. Cheryl Finley, Walton Endowed Professor + Director, AUC Art History + Curatorial Studies Collective. In partnership with the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, guests may view Calida Rawles: Away with the Tides before and after the conversation. The extended museum hours are 5 p.m.-8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 1.
Both Sherald and Rawles will be available after the Distinguished Lecture to sign their respective exhibition catalogues, Amy Sherald: American Sublime and Calida Rawles: Away with the Tides.
WHO:
Amy Sherald, CAU’97, received her MFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art and BA in painting from Clark Atlanta University. Sherald’s current exhibition, Amy Sherald: American Sublime, is currently on view in the High Museum of Art. She was the first woman and first African American to receive the grand prize in the 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.
In 2018, Sherald was selected by First Lady Michelle Obama to paint her portrait as an official commission for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. 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; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; and more.
Calida Rawles, C’98, is a contemporary visual artist who received her B.A. from Spelman in 1998 and her M.A. from New York University in 2000. Solo exhibitions of her work have been organized at the Perez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)(2024); Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY (2023; 2021): Various Small|Fires, Los Angeles, CA (2020): Standard Vision, Los Angeles, CA (2020); and more. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including Imagining Black Diasporas: 21st-Century Art and Poetics, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)(2024): Ordinary People – Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA); and more.
Cheryl Finley, Ph.D., is the inaugural director of the Arts and Visual Culture Department at Spelman and a distinguished art historian, curator, and contemporary art critic with an extensive academic background.
WHEN:
September 1, 2026, from 6-7:30 p.m.
Doors open at 5:45 p.m.
The lecture begins at 6 p.m.
The book signing begins at 7 p.m.
WHERE:
Spelman College’s Sisters Chapel (Navigational address – 440 Westview Drive Atlanta, GA 30314).
