Elizabeth Blair, NPR.
Artist Amy Sherald is canceling an upcoming show of her work at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Sherald’s boldly colored portraits documenting the African American experience have graced magazine covers.
Amy Sherald: American Sublime was scheduled to be on view at the National Portrait Gallery for five months beginning Sept. 19. Described as “the largest, most comprehensive exhibition of the artist’s work to date,” the exhibition was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, or SFMOMA, and is currently at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Sherald is canceling the show because of a dispute over her painting of a trans woman with pink hair and a blue gown holding a torch, called Trans Forming Liberty, 2024.