Baltimore Museum of Art Will Host Amy Sherald’s Canceled Smithsonian Show
199Sept. 9, 2025
The Baltimore Museum of Art will mount Amy Sherald’s exhibition “American Sublime,” which had been set to open at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery September 19. The show, which originated at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art before traveling to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, encompasses about fifty works by Sherald and would have been the National Portrait Gallery’s first solo presentation of a contemporary Black artist. Sherald made the decision tocancel its appearance therethis past July after learning that the Washington, DC, institution was planning on removing her 2024 paintingTrans Forming Liberty, depicting a transgender Statue of Liberty, in order to avoid enraging President Donald Trump, replacing it with a video showing people reacting to the work and discussing transgender issues. The artist worried that “the video would have opened up for debate the value of trans visibility.”
“Presenting ‘American Sublime’ at the BMA is a celebration of our creative community and a joyful reunion with those shaped by Amy’s extraordinary power to connect,” BMA director Asma Naeem said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to share her transformational work with our visitors.”
Sherald attended the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and spent part of her career there. Her work is held in the collection of the BMA, of which she is a former board member.
“Baltimore has always been part of my DNA as an artist,” said Sherald in a statement. “Every brushstroke carries a little of its history, its energy, its people, and my time there. To bring this exhibition here is to return that love.”
The show is slated to open at the BMA in November.