Past Exhibitions

Paper Revolutions: French Drawings from the New Orleans Museum of Art

ended on July 14th, 2019

Paper Revolutions: French Drawings from the New Orleans Museum of Art traces the politics of draftsmanship in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This selection features works on paper by celebrated painters Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and Eugène Delacroix, as well as lesser-known artists, such as Nicolas Lejeune. Read More

Keith Sonnier: Until Today

ended on June 2nd, 2019

NOMA hosts the first comprehensive museum survey for Keith Sonnier, a pioneering figure in conceptual, post-minimal, video and performance art of the late 1960s. Born in Grand Mamou, Louisiana, in 1941, Sonnier was one of the first artists to incorporate light into sculpture: an innovation that forms the foundation of his subsequent work. Read More

Bondye: Between and Beyond

ended on May 27th, 2019

Louisiana-born artist Tina Girouard created twelve sequined prayer flags inspired by the religious rituals of Vodou in a cultural exchange with Haitian artists in Port-au-Prince. Read More

Mildred Thompson: Against the Grain

ended on March 31st, 2019

Against the Grain marks the first solo museum presentation of the experimental wood works of the American artist Mildred Thompson (1936-2003) in more than thirty years. Made during the artist’s self-imposed exile in Europe, Thompson’s wood pictures are only recently being rediscovered and presented in the United States. Read More

Best Seat in the House: Photographs by Del Hall

ended on March 17th, 2019

Del Hall’s career in photojournalism took him from his home in New Orleans around the world. As an Emmy Award-winning news cameraman and film editor, Hall pioneered the use of moving images on television news, and he applied the same perceptive and sensitive vision to take incredible still photographs. Read More

The Orléans Collection

ended on January 27th, 2019

In celebration of the city of New Orleans Tricentennial, NOMA presents The Orleans Collection, an exhibition of selections from the magnificent collection of the city’s namesake, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. This exhibition reunites a representative group of forty European masterpieces from the Duke’s collection, gathered from museums and galleries across the US and Europe, to tell the complex story of the collection’s formation, reputation, dispersal, and impact for later generations. Read More

Teaching Beyond Doctrine: Painting and Calligraphy by Zen Masters

ended on January 20th, 2019

Painting and calligraphy by Zen monks has a long history in Japan. Introduced from China in the twefth century, Zen (meaning “meditation”) has its origins in the teachings of the Buddha, the sixth-century BCE Indian prince who taught that it was possible to be freed from suffering and the cycles of rebirth. Read More

Lina Iris Viktor: A Haven. A Hell. A Dream Deferred.

ended on January 6th, 2019

Lina Iris Viktor is widely recognized for her exploration of art’s connection to history, spirituality, and prophecy. Recasting factual and fantastical narratives surrounding America’s involvement in the founding of Liberia, Lina Iris Viktor: A Haven. A Hell. A Dream Deferred. explores a mythicized history of the West African nation. Read More

Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories

ended on September 16th, 2018

Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories marks New Orleans’ three-hundredth anniversary by bringing together a group of seven contemporary art projects that focus on forgotten or marginalized histories of the city. Read More

Veronese in Murano: Two Venetian Renaissance Masterpieces Restored

ended on September 3rd, 2018

NOMA is only the second US museum to host this focused exhibition on two recently conserved and rarely seen paintings by the celebrated Italian Renaissance artist Paolo Veronese (1528–1588), St. Jerome in the Wilderness and St. Agatha Visited in Prison by St. PeterRead More

Carlos Rolón: Outside/In

ended on August 26th, 2018

Carlos Rolón is internationally recognized for his paintings, sculptures and installations that break down walls. Working with shattered glass, wrought iron fences, and construction cinderblocks, his art takes these barriers to access and transforms them into new points of entry. Outside/In explores the rich connections between New Orleans, Latin America, and the Caribbean through allusions to each region’s natural and built environments. Read More

Lee Friedlander in Louisiana

ended on August 12th, 2018

One of the most famous living American photographers, Lee Friedlander has been visiting Louisiana since 1957 to document New Orleans jazz and to make artful street photographs. Lee Friedlander in Louisiana is the first major exhibition in any institution to examine the full scope and influence of Friedlander’s work in the region on the history of photography. Read More

Personalities in Clay: American Studio Ceramics from the E. John Bullard Collection

ended on July 8th, 2018

In the 20th-century, remarkably creative American potters evolved clay into an expressive art form, free from the confines of function or industrial production. Personalities in Clay: American Studio Ceramics from the E. John Bullard Collection showcases the collection of John Bullard, NOMA’s director emeritus, a promised gift to the New Orleans Museum of Art. This exhibition and catalogue chart the major figures in handmade, studio pottery from 1940 to the end of the 20th century. Read More

Lee Friedlander: American Musicians

ended on June 17th, 2018

Lee Friedlander took promotional portraits for a number of recording companies beginning in the mid-1950s and through the 1970s. Most well-known for his work with Atlantic Records, many of his session photographs became classic jazz, country, and rhythm and blues record album covers. Read More

A Queen Within: Adorned Archetypes

ended on May 28th, 2018

Experimental gowns, headpieces, and jewelry by avant-garde fashion designers Alexander McQueen, Gucci, Gypsy Sport, and Iris van Herpen investigate symbols of womanhood and challenge conventional notions of beauty. More than 100 articles of daring fashion are presented in a dramatic gallery design that explores eight archetypal personality types. Read More

Bror Anders Wikstrom: Bringing Fantasy to Carnival

ended on April 1st, 2018

Bror Anders Wikstrom arrived in New Orleans from Sweden by 1883 and is best remembered as a designer for elaborate Mardi Gras productions. Through the 1880s and 1890s, his fantastical designs elevated the extravaganza of Carnival. This exhibition includes watercolor sketches for parade floats and costumes. Read More

Upcoming Exhibitions

Fashioning America: Grit to Glamour

on view starting July 21st, 2023

Take a broad look at fashion history with an emphasis on the spirit of innovation and the diversity of the United States’s fashion heritage. The exhibition spotlights over 100 American designers and brands with garments from the 19th century to present day. Read More


Current Exhibitions


Exhibition Videos