Amy Sherald + Isamu Noguchi at the High Museum

Join us for two significant art exhibits at the High in June. Amy Sherald: American Sublime - the Columbus, Georgia native's first major museum retrospective, organized by SFMOMA - brings roughly fifty paintings spanning two decades to Atlanta as the tour's fourth and final stop, following sold-out runs at SFMOMA, the Whitney, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. The Whitney called Sherald "one of the foremost artists of our time"; SFMOMA places her, alongside Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, and Kerry James Marshall, as "one of America's defining contemporary portraitists." ArtMajeur called the exhibit "more than a retrospective; it's a correction."

Sherald's grayscale skin tones, vibrant wardrobes, and quietly monumental compositions reframe who is permitted to occupy the American portrait canon - and Essence captured the show's charge precisely, calling her sitters "stylists of self" rather than mere subjects. The final gallery includes Trans Forming Liberty (2024), Sherald's Statue of Liberty reimagined as a trans woman holding a torch of marigolds - the rare explicitly political work in a body that the artist, who is openly queer, frames as "a salve, a call to remember our shared humanity and an insistence on being seen." Sherald trained in Atlanta, graduated from Clark Atlanta University, and won the High's Driskell Prize in 2018.

Isamu Noguchi: "I am not a designer," the first design retrospective of the Japanese American artist's work in nearly twenty-five years, organized by the High and co-curated by Monica Obniski and Marin R. Sullivan, with nearly two hundred objects across furniture, lighting, stage sets, playgrounds, and unrealized architectural models. The show takes Noguchi's 1949 disavowal as a provocation rather than a thesis. Architect Magazine praised it for treating "design as lived experience rather than collectible object"; design historian Daniella Ohad has called Noguchi's design scope unsurpassed by any American designer of his generation.

Atlanta is more entangled with that legacy than most cities realize - the show coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of Playscapes in Piedmont Park, Noguchi's only United States playground completed in his lifetime, recently restored. Worth seeking out: the model for the unrealized Carmel house Noguchi designed in 1955 for artists Liam O'Gallagher and Robert Rheem - his only commission for what he called an "imaginary abode" came from a same-sex artist couple, conceived as "an arrangement of moods, a wide variety of sensory experiences."

Note: You must purchase your own time-entry ticket(s) for the Amy Sherald exhibit - see instructions below.

Event Plan

11:30am - Brunch (optional) - Boqueria - Colony Square

• Address: 1221 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta GA 30361
• Restaurant offers a brunch menu
• 4 minute walk to the Museum
• To join for brunch, you must post a comment below.

1:00pm - High Museum - Amy Sherald American Sublime Exhibit

• Address: 1280 Peachtree Rd NE, Atlanta, GA 30309
• You must purchase a timed entry ticket for 1:00pm on June 13th - do so ASAP, as this exhibit will sell out
• Tickets are free to Museum members and $28.50 for non-members.
• This will be a self-guided tour; the Museum is not offering docent tours or ticket discounts, given expected crowds.

2:00pm - High Museum - Isamu Noguchi: “I am not a designer” Exhibit

• We will meet back in the lobby just prior to 2:00pm
• The Museum has graciously offered our group a free docent tour of Noguchi's exhibit for those members who purchased an Amy Sherald ticket.
• There is no additional charge to see the Noguchi exhibit (if you joined the Sherald exhibit).

We hope you'll be able to join us for two of this season's must-see exhibits. Remember to purchase your time-entry ticket for Amy Sherald and post a comment if you will join us for brunch, to ensure the restaurant can accommodate all of us.