PAINTER OF MICHELLE OBAMA PORTRAIT FROM GA.

Artist Amy Sherald, who was chosen to paint the official portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama, is a Columbus, Georgia, native and a fine arts graduate of Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta.

Last Thursday, Atlanta’s High Museum of Art announced that Sherald, 44, would be the 2018 winner of the David C. Driskell Prize, in recognition of her contribution to African-American art.

Born in Columbus in 1973, Sherald graduated from Clark Atlanta University in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in painting.

She received her master’s in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2004, but that same year, she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, and moved back to Columbus to care for two ailing relatives.

Sherald received a lifesaving heart transplant in 2012, and resumed working in her Baltimore studio.