Sometimes a picture is worth way more than a thousand words.
Like this photograph of a 2-year-old girl called Parker gazing awestruck at artist Amy Sherald’s portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama.
Ben Hines, 37, from North Carolina, captured the inspiring moment while visiting the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. He shared the image of the girl, who he didn’t know, to Facebook. It’s now going viral.
“It was so touching and uplifting for me to see this beautiful child looking at a beautiful portrait of a powerful woman,” Hines told BuzzFeed. “I was so delighted to have been in the right place at the right time.”
Parker’s mother, Jessica Curry, said her daughter “just wanted to stare at” the painting. “She was fascinated.”
Hines’ photograph ended up attracting Sherald’s attention. The Baltimore-based artist said on Instagram that the snap had her “feeling all the feels.”
Sherald recalled how seeing a Bo Bartlett painting of a black man during an elementary school trip made her realize she could become an artist.
Sherald’s portrait of Michelle Obama was unveiled alongside Kehinde Wiley’s depiction of former President Barack Obama at the gallery last month.
During the ceremony, Michelle Obama said she was “thinking about all of the young people, particularly girls and girls of color, who in years ahead will come to this place and they will look up and they will see an image of someone who looks like them hanging on the wall.”
Hines’ photo was well-received on Twitter, where people hailed it for demonstrating exactly why representation matters.