Artist Amy Sherald has canceled her scheduled exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., due to censorship concerns over her painting "Trans Forming Liberty," which depicts the Statue of Liberty as a Black trans woman. The exhibition, titled "Amy Sherald: American Sublime," will instead travel to the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), where it will run from November 2, 2025, to April 5, 2026. Sherald will also receive one of the museum's "Artist Who Inspires" awards at its 2025 BMA Ball on November 22. The show is a mid-career survey of Sherald's work, previously shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
This move matters because it highlights ongoing tensions between artistic freedom and government oversight of federally funded institutions. The Smithsonian receives significant federal funding, and the Trump administration has exerted control over programming at venues like the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center. The BMA, which receives no federal funding, has no such restrictions and has a history of supporting artists without censorship. The exhibition also represents a homecoming for Sherald, who studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art and began her career in Baltimore, making the show both a personal and political statement about the importance of institutional independence in the arts.