More than two decades ago, Amy Sherald knew nothing about Maryland.

But a friend from Sherald’s alma mater, Clark Atlanta University, suggested the aspiring painter, then 28, check out Maryland Institute College of Art for graduate school.

“I was like, ‘Where is Baltimore?’ I had no idea,” Sherald said to laughs Sunday at the Baltimore Museum of Art during a sold-out Q&A with the museum’s director, Asma Naeem. “It was the best decision I ever made.”

Sherald, who lives in New York and works out of a New Jersey studio, was back in town for her midcareer retrospective, “American Sublime,” which opened to the public Sunday morning at the BMA. The exhibit, which requires a paid ticketed reservation, runs through April 5. (Admission is free on Thursday evenings and free all day on Jan. 15 and Feb. 19.)

On Sunday, the museum was abuzz with excitement for the opening — a major achievement for the BMA, which joined the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and New York’s Whitney Museum of Modern Art as the only American museums to host the 52-year-old’s acclaimed exhibition.

Initially, Baltimore was not its next destination. Things changed quickly in July, when Sherald pulled the scheduled midcareer survey from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington over potential censorship concerns regarding “Trans Forming Liberty,” her portrait of trans model Arewà Basit as the Statue of Liberty.

In September, the BMA announced it would host the exhibit that had the art world talking — in its entirety.

“This is where ‘American Sublime’ should have been all along,” Leslie King-Hammond, founding director of MICA’s Center for Race and Culture, said to cheers as she introduced Sherald and Naeem. Sherald lived in Baltimore from 2001 to 2018.

Located in the BMA’s Contemporary Wing, “American Sublime” features nearly 40 paintings that capture Sherald’s evolution as a master portraitist. They include the works that have made the Columbus, Georgia, native “one of the most important painters of our time,” according to Naeem, such as her portraits of first lady Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor, the young Black woman killed by Kentucky police in 2020.

Roughly half of the portraits, which feature Sherald’s trademark style of using grayscale for skin color, were created in Baltimore with local sitters as the subjects. They include a young woman holding an oversize teacup for “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance)” and a sharply dressed gentleman in a turquoise bow tie in “The Rabbit in the Hat.”

Sherald, who took the stage dancing to the booming bass of Lil Wayne’s “A Milli,” covered much ground in the wide-ranging, often funny conversation — though “Trans Forming Liberty” and her decision to pull the exhibit from the National Portrait Gallery did not come up.

For nearly an hour, Sherald discussed lessons she learned from artist Grace Hartigan at MICA, how she chooses her striking colors and what draws her to the people she paints.

“It’s facial features. It’s symmetry. Sometimes it’s asymmetry. Sometimes it’s just an energy or a presence,” she said. “Sometimes it’s beauty, sometimes it’s not, you know? It’s a little bit of everything.”

Baltimore artist Alma Roberts said the excitement over the arrival of “American Sublime” is palpable throughout the city. She said Sherald should be commended for the “amazing creativity of her artwork” and her decision to remove the exhibit in Washington amid the Trump administration’s criticism of “woke” art.

“She took a stand for the credibility of her work and the authenticity of her work — and for artists in general,” Roberts said. “For that, she has soared beyond even the wonderfulness of her work.”

Attendee Lisa White, a Baltimore resident who grew up in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood, said she couldn’t wait to see the exhibit because Sherald’s paintings are filled with life and humanity. They are visually arresting and appealing, whether a viewer knows art history or not.

“She makes it exciting,” White said. “For people who really don’t do well with art, one way or another, she brings them in. I love that about her.”

During the talk, Naeem asked Sherald what she hopes young Black kids will think and feel after seeing “American Sublime.”

“Just joy. That’s all,” she replied.

Sherald is working on a theater project she “can’t speak too much about,” while she’s also interested in pursuing sculpture and photography.

Still, the portraitist inside Sherald is alive and well; she constantly keeps an eye out for the next subject that will spark her creativity. It still happens in Baltimore, as when she saw a woman last week at Mom’s Organic Market but “chickened out” before making an introduction.

“I should probably just spend a month here, once a year, and just roam the streets,” Sherald said. Applause immediately followed — a sign she should always feel free to come back home.