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
The Art in Bloom Presented by @first_horizon silent auction is live! 🙋🌺
Bid now on unique works and objects from over 80 local and regional artists, including this featured painting, titled "Islanders" by Gretchen Weller Howard. The online auction is open through this Monday, March 27, at noon.
👉 Click the link in our bio to browse all items and place a bid today.
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🎨: Gretchen Weller Howard, "Islanders." Acrylic and plaster with fragments on canvas, 48 x 48 inches. ...
Swipe for three ways to celebrate the start of spring at NOMA:
🌸 Fabulous floral displays are on view to the public throughout the museum this Thursday, March 23–Sunday, March 26, as part of Art in Bloom Presented by @first_horizon.
🌸 "Photogenic: Selections from the James and Cherye Pierce Collection" includes a selection of the Pierces' outstanding collection of floral photography.
🌸 The Louisiana Rainbow Iris Festival, presented with the Greater New Orleans Iris Society, returns to the Besthoff Sculpture Garden on Sunday, April 2.
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1️⃣ Laura Gilpin, "White Iris" (detail), 1928. Platinum print on paper. Collection of Cherye R. and James F. Pierce, PG.2020.307.
2️⃣ Details from an installation at Art in Bloom Presented by First Horizon in 2022. Photo by @randykrauseschmidt.
3️⃣ Early Louisiana iris blooms in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden. Photo by @davidnola. ...
This scene portrayed by artist Paul Édouard Poincy was likely common in the 1880s at the French Market or any of the 30 neighborhood markets that existed in New Orleans at the time.
Originally a site of Native American trading, the French Market opened at the riverfront of New Orleans at the end of the 18th century when the city was under Spanish rule. By the 1880s, the French Market was at a high point in popularity, but at its lowest in cleanliness and general upkeep.
Waste-filled gutters and scraps of food attracted dogs scrounging for their dinner. Poincy captured one dog opting for a steak as he grabs meat from a butcher’s stall. A second dog underneath the table warns him off.
👉 Click the link in our bio to learn more about this work by Poincy in an article by Curator of Education Tracy Kennan for @nolanews.
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🎨: Paul Édouard Poincy, "Dogs in the French Market," 1889. Oil on canvas. Museum purchase, 25.0. ...
You have four more nights to catch @thenolaproject's latest production in NOMA's Lapis Center for the Arts.
Written by Pulitzer Prize winner James Ijames, "White" is a contemporary Frankenstein story set in a fiercely competitive art world. In this dark comedy directed by Beau Bratcher, ambitious artist Gus has his sights set on a major museum exhibition. But eventually, he has to come face-to-face with his own creations.
👉 Click the link in our bio to get your tickets today for the remaining performances on March 19, 29, 30, and 31. ...
Happy birthday to artist @hankwillisthomas, whose sculpture "History of the Conquest" is on permanent view in NOMA's Besthoff Sculpture Garden.
The artwork, commissioned for @prospect_nola in 2017, reflects on global histories of colonialism and empire. Thomas based the work on a 17th-century miniature sculpture composed of a real nautilus shel covered in silver and topped with a black enamel figure. Enlarged to monumental scale and cast in solid bronze, Thomas transforms a negative stereotype from the past into a monumental hero for the present.
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🎨: Hank Willis Thomas, "History of the Conquest," 2017. Museum purchase with funds provided by Sydney and Walda Besthoff, 2018.30. © Hank Willis Thomas. ...
Jacob Lawrence’s two visits to Nigeria in 1962 and 1964 influenced an entire body of work, now on view in “Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club.” Curator of Education Tracy Kennan shares a little about how those trips impacted the celebrated artist’s vision.
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🎥: @ddrewwstubbss ...
We’re making continual changes to bring all of our engaging digital offerings to the forefront of our website. We invite you to keep coming back for new content and exciting updates!
Discover artworks, collections, and stories in a digital format from NOMA like never before.
