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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.
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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.

READ MORE

 

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

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.⁠
—⁠
🎨 : 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.⁠
—⁠
🎨: 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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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.⁠
—⁠
🎨: 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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We`re thankful for you (and all of our visitors!) today and all year long.⁠

The museum and Besthoff Sculpture Garden are closed today, Thursday, November 28, in observance of Thanksgiving. We are open Friday–Sunday, 10 am–5 pm.⁠
—⁠
📸: @ivan_b.jpg
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