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Besthoff
Sculpture
Garden

Art and nature in harmony

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ADMISSION

Admission is free. Donations are appreciated.

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HOURS

Open seven days a week
Summer Hours (April–September) 10 am–6 pm  | Winter Hours (October–March) 10 am–5 pm

ACCESSIBILITY

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.

More than 90 works in a picturesque landscape

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Indiana, Robert

LOVE (red outside violet inside)

1966-1997

Shonibare, Yinka

Wind Sculpture V

2013

von Rydingsvard, Ursula

Dumna

2015

Zimmerman, Elyn

Portal Lethe

1992

Houseago, Thomas

Striding Figure (Rome I)

2013

Scully, Sean

Colored Stacked Frames

2017

Bell, Larry

Pacific Red (VI)

2016-2017

Gehry, Frank

Bear with Us

2014

Pepper, Beverly

Split Ritual II

1996

Zimmerman, Elyn

Mississippi Meanders

2019

Venet, Bernar

11 Acute Unequal Angles

2016

van Bruggen, Coosje and Oldenburg, Claes

Corridor Pin, Blue

1999

Saint-Gaudens, Augustus

Diana

1886, cast 1985

Stella, Frank

Alu Truss Star

2016

Thomas, Hank Willis

History of the Conquest

2017

Flack, Audrey

Civitas

1988

Moore, Henry

Reclining Mother and Child

modeled 1975, cast 1977

Background

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

THE BESTHOFFS

Sydney and Walda Besthoff are the namesake visionary founders behind a world-renowned sculpture garden for New Orleans.
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THE DESIGN TEAM

Architects, landscape architects, lighting designers, and arborists were among the contractors who made it all possible.
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DOWNLOAD A MAP

Stroll along meandering walking paths and identify all 97 works of art.
DOWNLOAD

VIRTUAL VISIT

See highlights of the Sculpture Garden in a virtual tour produced in partnership with the Google Arts & Culture Initiative.
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SUPPORT THE EXPANSION

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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WATCH A VIDEO

Relive the excitement of the grand opening of the Besthoff Sculpture Garden expansion in May 2019.
WATCH

Object Lesson:

Pablo Casals’s Obelisk, 1983
Arman (1925–2005)

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.

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Purchase a book.

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

Purchase Now

NOMA on Instagram @neworleansmuseumofart

Happy birthday to French Rococo painter #FrançoisBoucher, who was born #OnThisDay in 1703.⁠

Taking inspiration from Baroque artists such as Peter Paul Rubens and Antoine Watteau, Boucher imbued his work with an eroticism that made him one of the most celebrated painters in 18th-century France.⁠

This painting from the 1730s depicts a scandalous encounter in which a man surprises a woman resting "en déshabillé"—or in informal clothing that one would not wear out—with her cat. Flirtatious scenes such as this one garnered fans including Madame de Pompadour, an influential member of the royal French court and the chief mistress of King Louis XV.⁠

#ExploreNOMA⁠
—⁠
🎨: François Boucher, "The Surprise (Woman with a Cat)," 1730–32. Oil on canvas. Museum purchase, Women`s Volunteer Committee Fund, 84.58.
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Opening Soon 🗓️ "Debbie Fleming Caffery: In Light of Everything" is the first major retrospective of the photographer, whose dramatic black-and-white images draw on themes of faith, the dignity of labor, and the environment, among other subjects.⁠

In Caffery’s own words, the exhibition is “about that moment, in taking a photograph, when everything works…eyes, guts, heart, life experiences, [and] years of paying attention.”⁠

The exhibition includes works spanning more than five decades that are representative of Caffery`s entire career—including photographs taken throughout Louisiana and Mississippi, Mexico, and France. Recognized as one of the foremost contemporary photographers from the American South, Caffery`s career stretches beyond her importance locally and regionally.⁠

👉 "In Light of Everything" is on view October 6, 2023–March 3, 2024.⁠

#ExploreNOMA⁠
—⁠
🎨: Debbie Fleming Caffery, "Sunset Burning Cane," 2001. Gelatin silver print. New Orleans Museum of Art, Museum purchase, 2013.1.115. © Debbie Fleming Caffery.
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