Amy Sherald’s ‘Trans Forming Liberty’ Lives on After Smithsonian Cancellation

Amy Sherald’s portrait of a Black transgender person as the Statue of Liberty has found a new home after the artist’s forthcoming exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery was cancelled.

Sherald’s painting, Trans Forming Liberty (2024), of performance artist and trans model Arewà Basit positing as the monument, will appear instead on the cover of The New Yorker’s August issue.

The painting is currently on view in American Sublime, Sherald’s exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, which concludes this week.

The touring exhibition was set to open at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. in September but Sherald pulled the show last month after the museum spoke of replacing Trans Forming Liberty with a video of commentary on its subject.

The move follows pressure from U.S. vice president J.D. Vance, who oversees the removal of ‘programmes and exhibits that degrade shared American values’ at the Smithsonian. 

Vance said Sherald’s exhibition violated president Donald Trump’s executive order from March 2025 prohibiting funding for said exhibits by including ‘woke’ and ‘divisive’ content.

‘While no single person is to blame, it’s clear that institutional fear shaped by a broader climate of political hostility toward trans lives played a role,’ the American painter, who is famed for her 2018 portrait of Michelle Obama, told The New York Times.

A spokesperson for the Smithsonian denied the museum intended to remove the painting, noting they only wanted to offer more context in the form of a video. Sherald refused. 

‘This painting exists to hold space for someone whose humanity has been politicised and disregarded,’ Sherald said. ‘I cannot in good conscience comply with a culture of censorship, especially when it targets vulnerable communities.’

Lindsey Halligan, a special assistant to president Trump, released a statement asserting Sherald’s artwork reinterprets a national symbol ‘through a divisive and ideological lens’.

‘The Statue of Liberty is not an abstract canvas for political expression,’ she said. ‘It is a revered and solemn symbol of freedom, inspiration and national unity that defines the American spirit.’

Sherald, whose portraits highlight what she calls the ‘wonder of what it is to be a Black American’, said it’s an issue of visibility and representation.

‘Trans Forming Liberty challenges who we allow to embody our national symbols—and who we erase,’ Sherald said. ‘It demands a fuller vision of freedom, one that includes the dignity of all bodies, all identities.’ —[O]

Main image: Left to right: Amy Sherald, A God Blessed Land (Empire of Dirt) (2022); Trans Forming Liberty (2024). Exhibition view: American Sublime, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (9 April–10 August 2025). Courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art. Photo: Ron Amstutz.