‘Forever’ Mural by Odili Donald Odita
ended on December 31st, 2016
NOMA has commissioned Nigerian-born Odili Donald Odita to transform the first floor elevator lobby with a kaleidoscope mural. Read More
Past Exhibitions
Unfiltered Visions: 20th Century Self-Taught American Art
ended on October 17th, 2016
Throughout the twentieth century, the raw, instinctive approach of self-taught artists has quietly attracted acclaimed “contemporary” artists, collectors with keen eyes and in more recent decades, insightful museum curators, who… Read More
The Essence of Things – Design and the Art of Reduction: An Exhibition of the Vitra Design Museum
ended on September 11th, 2016
This exhibition brings together approximately 150 objects covering 100 years of design history. From familiar items like flip-flops and paperclips, to conceptual chairs and lamps by superstar designers, this exhibition celebrates simplicity in design. Read More
Bob Dylan: The New Orleans Series
ended on July 31st, 2016
Dylan portrays traditional views of French Quarter courtyards and alleyways, and captures moments in the private and public lives of New Orleans’s inhabitants in this series of paintings. Read More
Vera Lutter: Inverted Worlds
ended on July 17th, 2016
Vera Lutter elevates the current role of the negative from a nearly invisible part of the photography process to the chief object of our attention. Lutter’s photographs are one-of-a-kind negative prints made inside a room-sized pinhole camera with exposures that range from hours to days. Read More
Paper Negatives | Negative Image
ended on July 17th, 2016
This spring, NOMA will explore historical and contemporary roles of the photographic negative through three complementary exhibitions: Vera Lutter: Inverted Worlds, Paper Negatives, and Negative Image. Although the history of… Read More
Self-Taught Genius: Treasures from the American Folk Art Museum
ended on May 22nd, 2016
Self-Taught Genius considers the shifting implications of a self-taught ideology in the United States, from a widely endorsed and deeply entrenched movement of self-education to its current usage to describe… Read More
Pierre Joseph Landry: Patriot, Planter, Sculptor
ended on March 20th, 2016
NOMA will present the first exhibition to focus on the works of Pierre Joseph Landry. Born in France, Landry immigrated to Louisiana at the age of 15. He became a… Read More
Time/Frame
ended on February 28th, 2016
This selection of photographs from NOMA’s permanent collection invites an intimate reflection on the concept of time and our place within it. Read More
Tina Barney: Photographs
ended on February 28th, 2016
In conjunction with NOMA’s exhibition of its American art collection, Visions of US: American Art at NOMA, the museum will present a selection of Tina Barney’s photographs in the Great Hall…. Read More
Tim Youd: 100 Novels
ended on February 21st, 2016
Los Angeles-based contemporary artist Tim Youd will visit NOMA to perform the latest installment of his 100 Novels Project. Read More
Jasper Johns: Reversals
ended on January 31st, 2016
This exhibition showcases an exceptional group of prints by Jasper Johns (American, b. 1930), one of most influential artists of the 20th century. Read More
Visions of US: American Art at NOMA
ended on January 24th, 2016
Visions of US explores evolving ideas about American cultural identity from the 18th through 20th centuries. Drawn from NOMA’s world-class collection of American art, the exhibition brings together paintings, sculptures, photography and decorative arts to tell a rich and inclusive story about how we imagine and represent the United States. Read More
Traditions Transfigured: The Noh Masks of Bidou Yamaguchi
ended on January 10th, 2016
This exhibition features work by the Japanese artist Bidou Yamaguchi (b. 1970). Trained to make reproductions of historic Japanese Noh masks, the artist has, since 2003, radicalized this traditional idea and practice. Yamaguchi’s masks apply the forms, techniques, transformative spirit, and mysterious elegance of Noh masks to iconic female portraits from the European art historical canon, as well as to Kabuki actor prints by Sharaku, Japan’s enigmatic eighteenth century portrait master. Read More
A Louisiana Parlor: Antebellum Taste & Context
ended on October 11th, 2015
This exhibition is in celebration of the acquisition of a superb rococo revival parlor from the Butler-Greenwood Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Read More
10 Years Gone
ended on September 7th, 2015
Timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Ten Years Gone features six contemporary artists who explore the passage of time, memory, loss, and transformation. Read More
Robert Rauschenberg and the “Five From Louisiana”
ended on August 30th, 2015
This installation highlights NOMA’s recent acquisition of Melic Meeting (Spread), 1979, by Robert Rauschenberg, one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. Read More
Self/Reflection
ended on August 9th, 2015
A selection of works from the permanent collection by Brassaï, Jaroslav Rossler, Florence Henri, Clarence John Laughlin, and others that investigate, play with, and exploit reflections and mirror images in modern photography. Read More
Upcoming Exhibitions
Sèvres Magnifique: French Porcelain from the Collection of Thomas B. Lemann
on view starting February 28th, 2026
France’s royal porcelain factory at Sèvres, on the outskirts of Paris, has for nearly 300 years produced both decorative and useful ceramic objects of exemplary craft. Creating vases, tea sets, plates, and bowls that signified wealth, power and opulence to the eighteenth-century French court at Versailles, Sèvres factory artists worked alongside chemists and the best sculptors of the Rococo era to produce fine porcelain with luscious glazes in a range of colors. This exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art celebrates the bequest of a superb group of Sèvres porcelain from New Orleans collector Thomas B. Lemann. Read More
Current Exhibitions
Hayward Oubre: Structural Integrity
on view through May 3rd, 2026
Hayward Oubre: Structural Integrity is the first monographic exhibition dedicated to the work of American modernist, Hayward L. Oubre, Jr. (1916–2006). Born in New Orleans in 1916, Oubre became the first student to graduate with a bachelor of fine arts degree from Dillard University. Through 52 sculptures, paintings, and prints, the exhibition reveals how the artist shaped American art while working in the South, and underscores the crucial role of Black artists and art departments at HBCUs in shaping the artistic landscape of the twentieth century. Read More
Exhibition Videos
Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa Welcomes Visitors to New African Masquerades and Introduces Co-curator and Ekpe Chief Dr. Jordan Fenton
Watch as Chief Bassey Nsa introduces himself to visitors of the “New African Masquerades” exhibition and honors Dr. Jordan A. Fenton, an Ekpe Society Chief and exhibition co-curator. Read More