Art and nature in harmony
NOMA is committed to the health and safety of our community. Please see safety guidelines below.
Admission is free. Donations are appreciated.
Open seven days a week
Summer Hours (April–September) 10 am–6 pm | Winter Hours (October–March) 10 am–5 pm
Wheelchairs may be used throughout our barrier-free property and are available upon request.
Image: Elyn Zimmerman’s Mississippi Meanders bridge is illuminated at dusk.
The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden occupies approximately eleven acres in City Park adjacent to the museum. Atypical of most sculpture gardens, this garden is located within a mature existing landscape of pines, magnolias, and live oaks surrounding two lagoons. The garden design creates outdoor viewing spaces within this picturesque landscape. Originally conceived in 2003, the Sculpture Garden doubled in size in 2019 and has grown to include more than 90 sculptures. READ MORE
Sydney and Walda Besthoff are the namesake visionary founders behind a world-renowned sculpture garden for New Orleans.
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Architects, landscape architects, lighting designers, and arborists were among the contractors who made it all possible.
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See highlights of the Sculpture Garden in a virtual tour produced in partnership with the Google Arts & Culture Initiative.
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You can play a role in the historic expansion of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden by making a gift to support the project.
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Relive the excitement of the grand opening of the Besthoff Sculpture Garden expansion in May 2019.
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Bronze
Pablo Casals’s Obelisk, a towering accumulation of welded bronze cellos, dominates the waters of a lagoon in the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden. Standing over twenty feet tall, the Obelisk, built in homage to the world-renowned Spanish-Puerto Rican cellist and human rights activist Pablo Casals, is an imposing example of monumental sculpture by French-born artist Arman.
The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art offers detailed entries on 64 artworks in the original 2003 garden, as well as a bibliography and overview of the garden’s founding. 192 pages, hardcover. Edited by Miranda Lash. $49.95
Last week, Mahmoud Chouki and special guests celebrated the vinyl release of “Caravan—From Marrakech to New Orleans” with a performance in NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts 🎶 ...
Don’t miss a special conversation with Gene Koss and Deborah Czeresko (@dczeey), who are featured in the current exhibition “Sand, Ash, Heat: Glass at the New Orleans Museum of Art.” 💫
Gene Koss founded the glass art program at Tulane University (@tulaneglass) nearly fifty years ago and served as its head until his 2024 retirement.
A graduate of Tulane’s glass program under Koss, Czeresko brought her artistic voice in glass to a wider audience as the winner of the inaugural season of @blownawayseries on @netflix in 2019.
The two artists will be in conversation with Mel Buchanan, RosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts and Design.
This program is included with museum admission, which is free for Louisiana residents every Wednesday courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative.
🔗 Click the link in our bio to learn more and register.
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🎨: Gene Koss, “Ridge Road Climb,” 1984. Cast glass. New Orleans Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Kohlmeyer, 86.101. © Gene Koss.
🎨: Deborah Czeresko, “The Mother Vessel,” 1994. Blown glass. Gift of Susan Bowers, 2021.110. © Deborah Czeresko.
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In New Orleans photography, few images are now so well-known as the Storyville photographs attributed to Ernest J. Bellocq around 1913. 📸 But did you know that glass is an integral part of that history?
The object reproduced here is one of the ninety known glass plate negatives of Storyville subjects attributed to the photographer, and one of two in NOMA’s collection.
Glass has always been an important material in photography, especially as a base for the light-sensitive chemistry that makes a photographic negative—sharper and more detailed than those made using previous materials, like paper. By the time this photograph was made, Kodak film was available, but professional photographers’ preference for glass negatives persisted into the 1930s.
Prints from the Storyville glass negatives that Bellocq definitively made himself have not been found. This photographic glass negative shows a mantelpiece in the interior of an unidentified brothel, and at least one of the subjects in the pictures on the mantel display also appears in the group of Bellocq’s Storyville portraits.
🔗 Click the link in our bio to read more from Brian Piper, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings.
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🎨 : Ernest J. Bellocq, "Mantel, Storyville, New Orleans," ca. 1911–13. Gelatin silver negative on glass. Museum purchase, 73.241.
📍: 2nd floor, A. Charlotte Mann & Joshua Mann Pailet Gallery (beginning Friday, December 6)
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"With more than 90 pieces exhibited, exploring among gardens, magnolias and gorgeous live oaks becomes as culturally enriching as it is soul-soothing – think of it as forest-bathing meets gallery-hopping. Spectacular sculptures like Frank Gehry’s `Bear with Us,` Frank Stella’s `Alu Truss Star,` or Sean Scully’s `Colored Stack Frames` become even more fascinating against this uniquely Louisiana backdrop, inviting you to admire them from different angles and immerse yourself in nature."
Click the link in our bio to read the full "24 Hours in New Orleans" guide from @departuresint, which includes NOMA`s Besthoff Sculpture Garden.
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🎨: Sean Scully, "Colored Stacked Frames," 2017. Stainless steel with automotive paint. Museum purchase with funds provided by Sydney and Walda Besthoff, 2017.192. © Sean Scully.
📸: @stephaniegalt
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Today is World AIDS Day.
NOMA is proud to collaborate with @visual_aids for Day With(out) Art 2024 by presenting "Red Reminds Me...," a program of seven videos reflecting the emotional spectrum of living with HIV today.
The program features new work by Gian Cruz, Milko Delgado, Imani Maryahm Harrington, David Oscar Harvey, Mariana Iacono and Juan De La Mar, Nixie, and Vasilios Papapitsios,
A day of mourning and action that uses art to respond to the ongoing HIV and AIDS crisis, Day With(out) Art encourages museums, universities, and art institutions to present related programming on or around December 1, World AIDS Day. Because AIDS is not over!
This Wednesday, December 4, the museum will host a screening of video works in NOMA`s Lapis Center for the Arts. Works will be played on a loop, 12–5 pm.
#daywithoutart @visualaids @giancruzstudio @milko.delgado @mariana_iacono juan_delmar @nixienixienixie @basil.ios
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Mark your calendars for a gallery talk with artist @ayo.y.scott on the work of his father, artist John T. Scott, on Wednesday, December 4, at 12:30 pm. 🗓️
Scott will lead a discussion on John T. Scott’s “Blues Poem for the Urban Landscape” series, currently on view in NOMA’s Great Hall.
Free with museum admission. Louisiana residents receive free admission to NOMA on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation.
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🎨: John T. Scott, “Blues Poem for Urban Landscape: Food Store” (detail), 2003. Woodcut on Coventry white wove paper, from an edition of eight. Gift of Ashley and Timothy Francis, 2005.66.
📍: First floor, Great Hall
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Discover artworks, collections, and stories in a digital format from NOMA like never before.
