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
POV: You’re tasting all of the drinks from the LOVE in the Garden Cocktail Challenge sponsored by @sazeraccompanyofficial 🍹
Congrats to this year’s winners 👇
Best in Show: Zen Castro (@latitude29nola, @espiritunola, @turningtablesnola) with “Every Breath You Take” feat. @corazon_tequila
Fan Favorite: Lara Desmond (@dba_neworleans, @usbgnola) with “Mi Familia, Mi Corazon” feat. @wheatleyvodka
Additional thanks are due to all of our judges and our presenting sponsor for the event @hancockwhitney
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For #NationalCookingDay, we`re looking back on last year`s program with Creative Assembly Cohort member Courtney Clark, who presented a food demonstration sharing healthy alternatives to well-known foods.
Clark also invited Big Chief Romeo Bougere of the 9th Ward Hunters to perform in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden.
💻 Click the link in our bio to watch a video of the full program.
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In conjunction with the exhibition "Ring Redux: The Susan Grant Lewin Collection," NOMA presents a talk with Lewin, one of the foremost collectors of 20th– and 21st-century art jewelry, and writer Thomas Beller, who is Director of Creative Writing & Associate Professor of English at Tulane University. Following the conversation, the NOMA Museum Shop hosts a book signing.
Free with museum admission. Louisiana residents receive free admission to NOMA on Wednesdays courtesy of The Helis Foundation. When you arrive at NOMA, check in at the admissions desk for directions.
Click the link in our bio to learn more.
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🎨: Ariel Lavian, "No. 2 (Full Hansen Disease—Deformation as an Object series)," 2016. Copper, various patinas. Collection of SCAD Museum of Art, Gift of Susan Grant Lewin.
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Artist #AlmaThomas was born #OnThisDay in 1891 in Columbus, Georgia.
In Thomas’s painting "Dogwood Display II," a rainbow of color ripples beneath streaks of white paint, recalling the bursting blossoms of a dogwood tree, or white clouds shimmering in the sky on a sunny spring day.
Often inspired by sources close to home—especially the flowers in her garden—Thomas created a style of abstract painting entirely her own. A junior high school art teacher for more than thirty-five years, she only began devoting herself full time to painting after retiring in 1960. Twelve years later—at the age of 84—she became the first African American woman to have a solo exhibition at the @whitneymuseum.
👉 Click the link in our bio to learn more about Thomas and this work in NOMA`s permanent collection.
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🎨: Alma W. Thomas, "Dogwood Display II," 1972. Acrylic on canvas. Gift of Elizabeth R. French, 2000.23. © Alma Thomas.
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Meet the creative bartending talents in the eighth annual LOVE in the Garden Cocktail Challenge, sponsored by @sazeraccompanyofficial. You may recognize their faces from some of the best bars around New Orleans, including @latitude29nola @espiritunola @dba_neworleans @pigeonandwhale @jewelnola @dovetailnola @turningtablesnola @usbgnola
LOVE in the Garden Presented by Hancock Whitney is tomorrow, Friday, September 22.
🎟️ Tickets are available at noma.org/love and at the door.
#ExploreNOMA #HancockWhitneyLOVE #LoveInTheGarden2023
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A Kermit-approved glass pitcher? 🐸🏺
So-called "lily pad" pitchers—named after the thick tendrils of glass forming pools akin to aquatic plants—are coveted by collectors of American glass.
“Lily pad” pitchers are historically associated with the glasshouses of southern New Jersey, where the nation’s first successful glass production started in the 18th century.
This forested area—copious wood is needed to fuel furnaces for melting glass—was home to 11 glass factories by 1820, many employing German immigrants with skills from European glass factories.
The bread-and-butter of these American factories would have been practical glass items such as window panes and bottles. Fanciful objects like “lily pad” pitchers are thought to have been made in the glassblower’s after-hours.
👉 Click the link in our bio to learn about how this "lily pad" pitcher was made in a @nolanews article by Mel Buchanan, NOMA`s RosaMary Curator of Decorative Arts and Design.
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🎨: United States, Possibly New Jersey, "Lily Pad" Pitcher, c. 1825–1850. Glass, free blown. Gift of Melvin P. Billups in memory of his wife, Clarice Marston Billups, 58.109.
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Discover artworks, collections, and stories in a digital format from NOMA like never before.
