Baltimore Museum of Art’s Amy Sherald survey sets attendance record, surpassing prior ticketed exhibitions totals

A record set before the exhibition’s midway point

The Baltimore Museum of Art has recorded its highest attendance for a ticketed exhibition with “Amy Sherald: American Sublime,” which opened November 2, 2025 and is scheduled to run through April 5, 2026. As of January 20, 2026, the museum reported 52,597 people had either visited the exhibition or purchased tickets since opening day—surpassing the institution’s previous high-water mark for a special exhibition.

The earlier attendance benchmark at the BMA was the “Matisse/Diebenkorn” exhibition (2016–2017), which drew about 45,700 visitors. Another recent comparison point is “The Culture: Hip Hop & Contemporary Art in the 21st Century,” which drew about 30,000 visitors in 2023.

What the exhibition includes and why Baltimore is a key stop

“American Sublime” is a mid-career survey of Amy Sherald, the painter known for portraiture that centers Black Americans in everyday settings and public life. The Baltimore presentation brings together approximately 40 paintings created from 2007 to 2024, spanning early works through widely recognized portraits, including Sherald’s official portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama.

The Baltimore venue represents a homecoming dimension for the artist, who studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art and lived and worked in the city during formative years of her career. The BMA has previously acquired Sherald’s work and, in public programming around the exhibition, has emphasized the relationship between the artist’s development and Baltimore’s cultural landscape.

How the show arrived at the BMA after a canceled Washington opening

The Baltimore run follows earlier presentations of “American Sublime” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in fall 2024 and the Whitney Museum of American Art in spring 2025. The exhibition had been slated for a major Washington showing at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, but Sherald withdrew from that plan in 2025 following a dispute over how one work would be presented. After the cancellation became public, the BMA moved to bring the exhibition to Baltimore for the current run.

Audience profile and early indicators of demand

Visitor surveys conducted during the Baltimore run provide a snapshot of audience composition and behavior:

• 23% reported being first-time visitors to the BMA.
• 30% were under age 50.
• 47% reported spending more than two hours in the exhibition.
• 85% reported coming from Maryland, with visitors also recorded from 35 states and Washington, D.C.

With roughly 10 weeks remaining as of late January, the museum has projected that total attendance could exceed 70,000 by closing day, a figure that would further extend the BMA’s record for a ticketed exhibition. The exhibition is also scheduled to continue its national tour after Baltimore, with a subsequent presentation planned at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

“Amy Sherald: American Sublime” remains on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art through April 5, 2026.