Amy Sherald, a multi-hyphenate creative with deep ties to Baltimore, has brought her latest exhibition, American Sublime, to the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA).
The exhibit, which opened November 2, will remain at the BMA through April 5, 2026.
While many of the country’s most lauded art museums have displayed her work, few cities can claim to have influenced that work like Baltimore. As attendees make their way through the museum, they’ll see the culmination of the artist’s passion and purpose.
Baltimoreans, native and transplants alike, will see a piece of themselves in every canvas.
“Amy’s work deserves to be seen by Baltimoreans,” Asma Naeem told the Washington Post. “She has loved this city with every inch of her heart, and we want to show her our love back. Period,”
On November 22, the BMA awarded Sherald and Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu with the Artist Who Inspires Award.
Passing up the pre-med career her parents envisioned for her, Sherald, who grew up in Columbus, Georgia, received a Bachelor of Arts in 1997 from Clark Atlanta University, two hours away.
Sherald eventually came to Baltimore, where she received a Master of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2004 and did an apprenticeship with Arturo Lindsay, an artist and professor.
“What I admired about Amy was her determination, and her ability to go after something,” said Lindsay, who became a godfather to Sherald. “Once she decided there was something that she wanted, she would work hard at it.”
Sherald told CNN she moved American Sublime from its original home, Washington’s Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery amid concerns of political censorship that surrounded her previous work, “Trans Forming Liberty.”
Indeed, the New York Times reported that since President Donald Trump took office in January nearly one-third of American museums have lost government grants or contracts, spurring concerns among many federally funded institutions that the Trump administration is curbing investments related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
In an August essay for MSNBC (now MS NOW), Sherald wrote “When a government starts deciding which stories museums can tell, it is not protecting history. It is rewriting it.”
Sherald’s move to protect her artistic and political integrity defies the very institution that precipitated her global breakthrough. Yet her relocation to the BMA isn’t a matter of happenstance, but a full-circle realization of the city’s impact on her art.
American Sublime features nearly 40 pieces of her work, spanning a timeline from 2007 to 2024 and has drawn wide-spread praise.
Sarah Roberts, who curated the show when it was at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, describes in a 60 Minutes interview the “majesty and tactility” of Sherald’s use of color.
In describing American Sublime, Lindsay said, “What you see in that exhibition…is Amy taking a look at, number one, a new level of realism, another level of realism.”
Walking through the visual narrative of her career, Sherald’s personal and artistic growth, her evolving insights into the human experience and her award-winning contributions to the art community are on full display in American Sublime.
Under Lindsay’s tutelage, a group of artists including Sherald, Calida Rawles and Fahamu Pecou have created a push and pull effect that many in the art community have benefitted from.
Rawles, who is based in Los Angeles, and Brooklyn-native Pecou espoused professional admiration for Sherald, as well as their personal stakes in her work.
The trio has been shaped by decades of friendship amidst the consistent drive to bring the best out of each other.
“The choice to make large works is important,” said Pecou. “It has to be larger than life to get in the face of the visual culture that has dominated for so long.”
At the intersection of inadvertent activism and artistry, Sherald told 60 Minutes, “I don’t think there’s anybody more patriotic than a Black person…this country would not be, if it was not for us.”
Rawles said, “American Sublime adds a vital chapter to the American art canon and insists on an inclusive vision of Americana. Amy inspires us to dream further. Her love for this country and her belief in an America where everyone is part of its fabric is a patriotism rooted in truth, compassion, and hope, which is especially important in a time when Black presence and history are under threat.”