The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) will open the exhibition “Amy Sherald: American Sublime” on November 2, 2025. This show marks the third venue for the artist’s mid-career survey and is described as the most comprehensive presentation of Sherald’s work to date. The exhibition will include about 40 paintings spanning from 2007 to 2024, showcasing both early works and well-known pieces, and will remain on view through April 5, 2026.
Sherald has strong connections to Baltimore, having earned her M.F.A. in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and achieved national recognition while living in the city. The BMA previously acquired her painting “Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between” in 2018 and has featured her work in group exhibitions since then. In addition to hosting this exhibition, the museum plans to honor Sherald with an “Artist Who Inspires” award at its annual BMA Ball on November 22, alongside artist Wangechi Mutu and the Sherman Family Foundation.
Asma Naeem, Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director of the BMA, said: “I’ve had the great pleasure and joy of knowing Amy Sherald for a decade. In that time, she has become a cultural force, capturing the public imagination through works that are powerful and resonant in their profound humanity. Amy’s story is also deeply intertwined with Baltimore. Beyond her education and time lived in our beloved city, Baltimore is rooted in her subjects, on her canvases, and in her titles. 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. We’re thrilled to share her transformational work with our visitors.”
Key works featured include Sherald’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition-winning painting “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance),” her portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama, triptych “Ecclesia (The Meeting of Inheritance and Horizons)” created for this exhibition, a memorial portrait of Breonna Taylor, as well as “Trans Forming Liberty.”
Of bringing this show to Baltimore Sherald stated: “Baltimore has always been part of my DNA as an artist. 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 exhibition was organized by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) curator Sarah Roberts before premiering at SFMOMA in fall 2024; it later traveled to New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art earlier this year before coming to Baltimore.
At BMA tickets go on sale October 1 for members and October 8 for general public; prices range from $10–$18 depending on age or group status while members—and those aged under-18—are admitted free along with student groups. Free admission will also be offered during select evening hours each Thursday as well as opening day November 2.
Sherald’s art often depicts sitters who vary widely in background or identity—portrayed against roles associated with American culture such as farmer or cowboy—and uses a gray palette for skin tones intended to encourage viewers toward shared human experience rather than surface appearance.
Photography forms an essential part of Sherald’s process except for two commissioned portraits; she selects models based on their qualities observed during photoshoots where organic posing allows authentic essence capture.
Sherald draws inspiration from Black women writers like Toni Morrison when titling paintings—a practice intended to expand context around subjects’ interior lives.
Founded in 1914 the Baltimore Museum of Art houses more than 97,000 objects across many eras including what it describes as the world’s largest public collection by Henri Matisse.
