Vanity Fair magazine’s impactful yet bittersweet September 2020 cover is presided by Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black emergency medical technician who was shot to death by Louisville Metro Police officers in March.
The elegant image of Taylor was painted by Amy Sherald, the artist behind former first lady Michelle Obama’s official picture for the National Portrait Gallery.
Sherald envisioned Taylor in a cascading turquoise gown and posing with her hand on her hip. Her knowing gaze, meeting the reader’s eyes, seems to reclaim some of her power posthumously. The look is apt, as Taylor’s death helped amplify Black Lives Matter voices in America.
“She sees you seeing her,” Sherald explained in the behind-the-cover interview. “The hand on the hip is not passive, her gaze is not passive. She looks strong!”
As for Taylor’s dress, the painter said she associated it with Lady Justice. “I wanted this image to stand as a piece of inspiration to keep fighting for justice for her,” she added.
The painter also detailed adding elements Taylor would have found sentimental, such as a chain necklace with a gold cross and the engagement ring that her boyfriend had intended to give her but she never got to see.
Taylor was asleep aside her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, at about 12.40am on 13 March, when three Louisville law enforcers with a no-knock warrant broke down their door for a drug raid. Walker shot once at the cops, who fired back at Taylor at least eight times. No drugs were found in their home.
The fatal incident resulted in the ban of no-knock warrants in Louisville, now known as “Breonna’s Law.”
The Vanity Fair issue follows Oprah Winfrey’s O Magazine in honoring the late medical worker as cover star.
While this work was commissioned by the magazine, Sherald emphasized that it was, on a deeper level, painted for Taylor’s loved ones. “The whole time I was thinking about her family…” she said. “Producing this image keeps Breonna alive forever.”
