Image: High Museum of Art, Atlanta
The High Museum of Art in Atlanta is presenting Amy Sherald’s 'American Sublime' through September 27, 2026, as part of a national tour that the museum describes as the final stop for the artist’s acclaimed mid-career retrospective. The exhibition is on view at the High from May 15 to September 27, with general admission tickets priced at $28.50 and members admitted free. The museum also offers VIP after-hours access on Friday nights, when visitors can enter from 5 to 9 p.m. with a separate ticket.
The High says 'American Sublime' is the largest exhibition of Sherald’s work to date and includes paintings made from 2007 to 2024, alongside many of her best-known works and rarely seen paintings from across her career. The show is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and curated by Sarah Roberts, former Andrew W. Mellon Curator and Head of Painting and Sculpture at SFMOMA. According to the museum, the exhibition debuted in 2024 at SFMOMA, then traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art before arriving in Atlanta as the fourth and final venue.
Sherald has a particularly close relationship to Atlanta and to the High. Born in Columbus, Georgia, she trained as a painter in the city and graduated from Clark Atlanta University. The museum awarded her the David C. Driskell Prize in African American Art and Art History in 2018, and in 2022 it presented 'The Obama Portraits Tour,' which featured her portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama. Before reaching Atlanta the exhibition was on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art from November 2, 2025 to April 5, 2026.
The exhibition page highlights several works included in the presentation, among them 'Ecclesia (The Meeting of Inheritance and Horizons)' (2024), 'Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance)' (2014), 'The Bathers' (2015), 'A Midsummer Afternoon Dream' (2021), 'A God Blessed Land (Empire of Dirt)' (2022), and 'Kingdom' (2022). One wall text describes 'The Bathers' as centering Black women in a visual history that has long depicted white subjects at leisure, underscoring Sherald’s sustained interest in representation, agency, ease and respite.
On visitor access, the High says timed tickets for 'Amy Sherald: American Sublime' are paused through the end of August, allowing walk-in entry during that period before timed access resumes. The museum has also scheduled Access for All on Wednesday, August 19, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., a day of free admission with performances, art conversations and drop-in activities that the newsletter says needs no advance planning.
The High has also scheduled a series of related programs around the exhibition. On August 20, 'Fashioning Futures: Raul Lopez of LUAR in Conversation with Andrew Westover' is set for 7 to 8 p.m. in Hill Auditorium, with the museum describing it as a public conversation about Lopez’s trajectory in fashion. On August 21, Friday Jazz includes VIP access to 'Amy Sherald: American Sublime' from 5 to 9 p.m., along with live music across the museum. On August 22, 'On Art and Music: Element (Kendrick Lamar)' pairs painter Tariku Shiferaw with producer Tane Runo for a beat breakdown and discussion of Shiferaw’s painting 'Element (Kendrick Lamar)' in the Taylor Lobby.
With the run ending on September 27, 2026, the Atlanta presentation is the last chance to see the retrospective on its four-city tour. The pause on timed tickets lifts at the end of August, after which booked entry windows return.
