July 25, 2025
‘I cannot in good conscience comply with a culture of censorship, especially when it targets vulnerable communities,’ Sherald told the New York Times.
Artist Amy Sherald has withdrawn her upcoming solo show, American Sublime, from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.
Sherald, known for painting former First Lady Michelle Obama, said her current exhibition and artistic vision were stifled when a painting featuring a transgender subject was removed from the exhibit.
The disputed work, Trans Forming Liberty (2024), shows a Black transgender person in the posture of the Statue of Liberty. According to Sherald, Smithsonian officials concerned the imagery might rile up the Trump administration. However, Sherald believes that the present threat of erasure and pointed legislative attacks on the trans community necessitates its inclusion.
“I cannot in good conscience comply with a culture of censorship, especially when it targets vulnerable communities. At a time when transgender people are being legislated against, silenced, and endangered across our nation, silence is not an option,” Sherald told the New York Times.
The museum offered to supplement the work with a contextual video discussing transgender themes. She rejected that compromise, saying it would invite debate over the validity of trans visibility, which she believed would undermine the piece’s core message.
The exhibit was scheduled to be the first solo show by a Black contemporary artist at the National Portrait Gallery. The exhibit was previously shown, to much acclaim, at the Whitney Museum in April 2025 and SFMOMA in San Francisco.
Sherald said the decision was rooted in “institutional fear shaped by a broader climate of political hostility toward trans lives.”
A spokesperson for the Smithsonian countered that the aim was never to remove Trans Forming Liberty, but to present the context surrounding the piece through multiple forms of media.
Sherald has become a defining figure in contemporary American portraiture, known for her grayscale paintings. Her work examines race and identity. She is also known for her Breonna Taylor portrait. Her Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance) piece won the National Portrait Gallery’s 2016 Outwin Boochever Prize.
Sherald’s decision adds to the national focus on artistic freedom, representation and political influence in cultural institutions. It also comes as Congress is proposing legislation to decrease funding and curb “divisive narratives” in Smithsonian programming.
RELATED CONTENT: Smithsonian Denies Removing Items From National African American History Museum
