This Fall the New Orleans Museum of Art Hosts the Visionaries Gala and Garden Party Presented by First Horizon to Mark Twenty Years of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden
Over two evenings, NOMA will celebrate this landmark anniversary of the Besthoff Sculpture Garden with a major fundraiser to support the future of the garden and the New Orleans Museum of Art.
The Visionaries Gala and Garden Party are Thursday, November 7, and Friday, November 8, 2024.
NEW ORLEANS – The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) has announced dates and details for the Visionaries Gala and Garden Party Presented by First Horizon, marking twenty years of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden. The two events—on Thursday, November 7, and Friday, November 8, respectively—will raise funds to support the future of the Besthoff Sculpture Garden and NOMA, and they will serve as capstones for a year of programming designed to highlight the natural and artistic beauty of the garden.
“For the Visionaries Gala Dinner and Garden Party, guests from near and far will come together to honor the contributions of Sydney and Walda Besthoff to NOMA and to our city,” said Susan M. Taylor, The Montine McDaniel Freeman Director of NOMA. “Celebrating one of the most important destinations in New Orleans, this singular event will reflect on the past two decades, while looking forward to the garden’s vibrant future.”
On Thursday, November 7, NOMA will host the Visionaries Gala, including an elegant seated dinner under the stars in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden surrounded by some of the most important works of art from the 19th century to the present day.
And on Friday, November 8, the museum will welcome even more guests to the Besthoff Sculpture Garden for the Visionaries Garden Party, a lively and festive evening filled with music, dancing, drinks, and casual fare.
The Besthoff Sculpture Garden opened in November 2003 with guidance and support from its namesake patrons: Walda Besthoff and the late Sydney J. Besthoff III. Since its opening and with a major expansion in 2019, the Besthoff Sculpture Garden has become an important destination for local visitors and tourists from around the world. The garden is free and open to the public seven days a week.
“What started as a small collection of sculpture has turned into something momentous with endless collaboration from my late husband Sydney, myself, and NOMA,” said Walda Besthoff, who is a current NOMA Trustee. “Twenty years ago, twenty works were placed in a landscaped setting on five acres adjacent to the museum—which has grown to 100 works of art from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries on nearly 12 acres. The garden is notable not only for its natural beauty, but also for the breadth and quality of the work it contains.”
The Visionaries Gala and Garden Party will mark a shift in the museum’s annual fall fundraising events. In 2024, NOMA will host this two-night affair in place of LOVE in the Garden—held in the garden each September—and Odyssey—the museum’s annual gala traditionally hosted in November.
“This landmark year has offered us the opportunity to focus our fundraising efforts to emphasize the importance of the Besthoff Sculpture Garden to NOMA and to New Orleans. I invite everyone to join us for this extraordinary opportunity to reflect on 20 years of the Besthoff Sculpture Garden,” added Taylor.
The Visionaries Gala and Garden Party event committee is led by a collaborative team of local and national chairs to bolster support for the museum and Besthoff Sculpture Garden in New Orleans and across the country. Walda Besthoff, Valerie Besthoff, Virginia Besthoff, and Jane Steiner join as honorary chairs. Liza and Filippo Feoli; Robyn Dunn and Andrew Schwarz; Tod and Kenya Smith; Jenny and Robbert Vorhoff; and NOMA Volunteer Committee Chair Tully Forrester Jordan will spearhead efforts locally alongside national chairs Keith Fox and Tom Keyes and Donna Rosen. First Horizon joins as presenting sponsor for both evenings.
“We are thrilled to support NOMA for this momentous celebration,” said Ashley Morgan, Community Relations Liaison for First Horizon. “The Besthoff Sculpture Garden is one of the city’s most important cultural destinations, and First Horizon is honored to celebrate it as presenting sponsor for the Visionaries Gala and Garden Party.”
The Visionaries Gala and Garden Party rounds out a year’s worth of programming highlighting the anniversary, which NOMA kicked off with a family day in December 2023. The museum’s celebration includes planned permanent additions by artists Elmgreen & Dragset, Sarah Sze, and Thomas Price to the nearly 100 works of art installed in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden; programmatic offerings including a free fall festival scheduled for Saturday, September 28; and a new book by publisher Monacelli that focuses on the history of the 12-acre garden and its expansion in 2019.
Sponsorship packages may be purchased on the museum’s website at noma.org/visionaries.
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Media Contacts
Charlie Tatum
Director of Marketing and Communications
New Orleans Museum of Art
ctatum@noma.org
504.658.4103
Ra’Jae’ Wolf
Marketing and Communications Associate
New Orleans Museum of Art
rwolf@noma.org
504.658.4106
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About NOMA and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden
The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) and its Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden are home to innovative exhibitions, installations, educational programs, and research. Exploring human creativity across time, cultures, and disciplines, the global scope of the museum’s initiatives open a vibrant dialogue with the history and culture of New Orleans. The museum stewards a collection of nearly 50,000 works, with exceptional holdings in African art, photography, decorative arts, and Japanese art, as well as strengths in American and French art, and an expanding collection highlighting contemporary artists. The museum’s exhibitions and dynamic learning and engagement offerings serve as a forum for visitors to engage with diverse perspectives, share cultural experiences, and foster a life of learning at all ages. Recent exhibitions include Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club, Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers, The Orléans Collection (an exhibition of forty European masterpieces from the collection of the city’s namesake, Philippe II, Duc d’Orléans), East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth Century America Landscape Photography, and Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories (seven contemporary art projects focusing on reimagining stories from the city’s past).
NOMA’s 12-acre Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden expands visitors’ experiences of the museum with one of the most notable sculpture gardens in the country. The Besthoff Sculpture Garden, free and open to the public seven days a week, has nearly 100 sculptures and outdoor works of art situated in a unique landscape featuring Spanish moss-laden live oaks and a sinuous lagoon surrounded by an expansive ecosystem of native plants. The works in the garden range from the 19th to the 21st centuries, with pieces by Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Louise Bourgeois, Ida Kohlmeyer, Claes Oldenburg, Sean Scully, Maya Lin, Do Ho Suh, Ugo Rondinone, Wangechi Mutu, Hank Willis Thomas, and many others. The Besthoff Sculpture Garden features contemporary design elements—including a sculpture pavilion, an amphitheater, and an architecturally significant canal link bridge connecting the garden’s original 2003 footprint with a 2019 expansion. Its water management practices support the health and resiliency of New Orleans City Park and the surrounding environment. Throughout the year, NOMA hosts outdoor programs in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden including festivals, performances, wellness classes, tours, and more.
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Image Credits
Left: Photo by Richard Sexton. Courtesy of the New Orleans Museum of Art. Artwork credits (left to right): Robert Indiana, LOVE (red outside violet inside), 1966–97. Museum purchase, Sydney and Walda Besthoff Foundation Fund, 2004.119; Joel Shapiro, Untitled, 1991. Museum purchase, Sydney and Walda Besthoff Foundation Fund, 98.213. Courtesy of Artist Rights Society, New York; Jaume Plensa, Overflow, 2005. Museum purchase, Sydney and Walda Besthoff Foundation Fund, 2008.113. Courtesy of Artist Rights Society, New York; Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen, Corridor Pin, Blue, 1999. Museum purchase, Sydney and Walda Besthoff Foundation Fund, 2004.118. © Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen.