In July 2025, Amy Sherald did something no artist of her stature had done before at the Smithsonian: she walked away. The painter, whose portrait of Michelle Obama remains one of the most recognisable works in American portraiture, withdrew her entire touring retrospective, American Sublime, from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The cause was a single painting of a transgender woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty. The effect was a defining moment in the ongoing battle over artistic freedom under political pressure.
The decision was not impulsive. It was the culmination of months of institutional anxiety, a presidential executive order targeting the Smithsonian, and a question that has haunted American cultural life for decades: who gets to decide what the public sees?
The Painting That Broke the Exhibition
The work at the centre of the dispute is Trans Forming Liberty (2024), a monumental oil-on-linen portrait depicting the transgender model, singer, and activist Arewà Basit posed in the manner of the Statue of Liberty. Basit wears a flowing blue gown, holds a torch aloft, and gazes outward with the calm assurance that characterises Sherald’s best work. The painting recasts one of America’s most iconic symbols through the lens of gender identity.
Sherald had included the painting in American Sublime, a mid-career survey of over 40 works spanning 2007 to 2024, organised by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition had already completed successful runs at SFMOMA and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, where Trans Forming Liberty was displayed without incident. At the Whitney, the painting appeared alongside portraits of Breonna Taylor, Michelle Obama, and dozens of ordinary Black Americans rendered in Sherald’s signature grayscale palette against vivid, flat colour fields.
When the exhibition was scheduled to travel to the National Portrait Gallery in September 2025, the mood shifted. According to Sherald, the museum informed her of “concerns raised internally” about the painting, which led to discussions about removing it from the show. The Smithsonian, through a spokesperson, offered a different account: the museum had proposed producing a video to “contextualise” the painting, which would have featured perspectives from trans individuals and their allies. Sherald rejected the proposal, telling The New York Times that the video would have included anti-trans voices, effectively turning the painting into a subject for debate rather than allowing it to stand as art.
“I was opposed to that being a part of the American Sublime narrative,” Sherald said.
A History of Firsts, Cut Short
The cancellation carried a particular weight because of what the exhibition was meant to represent. Had it proceeded, American Sublime would have been the first solo exhibition by a Black female artist at the National Portrait Gallery since the museum opened its doors in 1968. Sherald would have been the first Black artist active in the contemporary era to receive a solo show at the institution.
The irony was difficult to ignore. The Smithsonian already owned two of Sherald’s paintings: her official portrait of Michelle Obama, commissioned in 2018 following her win of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, and her portrait of Breonna Taylor, co-acquired by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. Sherald had been closely tied to the National Portrait Gallery for nearly a decade. Her painting Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance) won the top prize in the 2016 Outwin Boochever competition, making her the first woman and first African American to receive the honour.
Rhea L. Combs, then director of curatorial affairs at the National Portrait Gallery, had described the exhibition’s arrival as “a full circle of sorts.” That circle was now broken.
The Political Architecture of Fear
Sherald’s withdrawal did not occur in isolation. It happened against the backdrop of an unprecedented campaign by the Trump administration to reshape federal cultural institutions. On 27 March 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14253, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which accused the Smithsonian of promoting “divisive, race-centred ideology” and directed Vice President JD Vance – a member of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents – to “remove improper ideology” from the institution’s museums, education centres, and the National Zoo.
The order named specific exhibitions, including The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and called for the removal of content deemed to “degrade shared American values.” It gave Vance the authority to block federal funding for programmes or exhibits considered to promote such content. The executive order explicitly stated that “museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn – not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.”
The Smithsonian, established by an act of Congress in 1846, receives approximately 62 per cent of its budget from federal appropriations – nearly $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2024. The institution is governed by a Board of Regents that includes the Chief Justice, the Vice President, six members of Congress, and nine private citizens. The executive order placed Vance, as a regent, in direct oversight of content decisions.
The pressure was already having consequences. In May 2025, Trump announced on social media that he had fired Kim Sajet, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, describing her as “a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI.” Sajet initially remained in her position, but on 9 June the Smithsonian issued a statement affirming its nonpartisan mission and directing the Secretary to “articulate specific expectations to museum directors and staff regarding content.” Sajet resigned four days later. She was the first woman to serve as the gallery’s director.
Sherald pointed to this climate in her public statement. “While no single person is to blame,” she said, “it is clear that institutional fear shaped by a broader climate of political hostility toward trans lives played a role.”
The Artist’s Ultimatum
Sherald’s withdrawal was accompanied by a detailed public statement and a private letter to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, both of which laid bare her reasoning. In the letter, she wrote: “I entered into this collaboration in good faith, believing that the institution shared a commitment to presenting work that reflects the full, complex truth of American life. Unfortunately, it has become clear that the conditions no longer support the integrity of the work as conceived.”
Her public statement went further, framing the dispute as a matter of moral clarity. “This painting exists to hold space for someone whose humanity has been politicised and disregarded,” she said. “I cannot in good conscience comply with a culture of censorship, especially when it targets vulnerable communities.”
The model for the painting, Arewà Basit, attended the Whitney opening wearing a long white coat over her gown, with “Black Trans Lives Matter” painted on the back. In the exhibition’s audio guide, Basit described what the portrait meant to her: “I see all of the years being told that I had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. And when I found the truest meaning of what that pledge is, I see this version of Lady Liberty.”
The Smithsonian maintained that it had intended the video to enhance, not replace, the painting. “The Smithsonian has a long-standing and valued relationship with artist Amy Sherald,” a spokesperson said. “We are and continue to be deeply appreciative of her and the integrity of her work. While we understand Amy’s decision to withdraw her show from the National Portrait Gallery, we are disappointed that Smithsonian audiences will not have an opportunity to experience American Sublime.”
The Exhibition’s Afterlife
The withdrawal from Washington was not the end of American Sublime. The exhibition opened at the Baltimore Museum of Art on 2 November 2025, where Sherald studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art under the painter Grace Hartigan. The BMA show included Trans Forming Liberty without reservation, and the museum awarded Sherald its Artist Who Inspires award at its annual gala. The final venue is the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, opening 15 May 2026 through 27 September. Sherald graduated from Clark Atlanta University and received the High’s David C. Driskell Prize in 2018.
The Baltimore and Atlanta runs demonstrated that the painting could be shown publicly without the institutional panic that gripped the Smithsonian. The controversy also amplified the work’s visibility. The New Yorker put Trans Forming Liberty on the cover of its 11 August 2025 issue, cementing its status as a cultural flashpoint.
What the Stand Reveals
Sherald’s withdrawal raised questions that extend well beyond a single exhibition. The National Portrait Gallery’s free admission had made it one of the most accessible art institutions in the country, particularly for Washington’s Black population, which stands at approximately 40 per cent. The loss of the exhibition was not merely symbolic – it denied a broad audience the chance to engage with work that was explicitly about expanding the definition of who belongs in American portraiture.
Christopher Bedford, the director of SFMOMA who organised the exhibition, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Sherald was “not only our most significant living portraitist, chronicler of American life and an amazing history painter, but one of our greatest living artists.” He added: “While she paints Black life, she’s also painting humanity.”
Sherald herself has always understood her work in terms of the broader American tradition. “I consider myself an American realist,” she told the documentary series Art21. “For me, it means just recognising my Americanness first, and just wanting the work to join a greater ongoing conversation. Edward Hopper or Andrew Wyeth, they’re telling these American stories and I’m also telling American stories.”
The question now is whether those stories can continue to be told at the nation’s most prominent cultural institutions, or whether political pressure will reshape what the public is allowed to see. Sherald’s answer was unequivocal. “At a time when transgender people are being legislated against, silenced, and endangered across our nation,” she concluded, “silence is not an option. I stand by my work. I stand by my sitters. I stand by the truth that all people deserve to be seen – not only in life, but in art.”
