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.
WATCH
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
Happy Birthday to Frank Stella, BOTD in 1936 🎂
Stella`s "Alu Truss Star," seen here in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden at @neworleansmuseumofart, is one in a series of large-scale celestial sculptures, each comprised of different materials and forming distinct silhouettes.
"Alu Truss Star`s" open framing allows viewers to see the distinctive shape of a star and the sculpture`s many angles converging in its center all at once. Made entirely of milled aluminum, the work appears to shine in the daylight, lending a playfulness to the more industrial appearance of the sculpture and its material.
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📸: @all_hale_art
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📚️🌟🛍️ CATALOGUE GIVEAWAY: NOMA MUSEUM SHOP BOOK SALE 📚️🌟🛍️
With the NOMA Museum Shop`s Book Sale just one day away, we`re doing an Instagram giveaway to get you started on your summer reading journey 🛣️✈️☀️
2 winners will be selected and will receive their option of 1 of 3 catalogues from the NOMA Museum Shop:
📕 "Dawoud Bey: Elegy"
📘 "Hayward Oubre: Structural Integrity"
📗 "Where Art Meets Nature: The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden"
To enter, follow these 3 steps:
1️⃣ Follow us on Instagram @neworleansmuseumofart
2️⃣ Share this post on your story and tag us
3️⃣ Tag a friend in the comments of this post who you think would love this giveaway
The giveaway will close at 5 PM on Sunday, 5/17. Winners will be selected randomly and reached out to on Monday, 5/18.
PLEASE NOTE: Winners MUST be able to pick up their catalogue from the NOMA Museum Shop at 1 Collins Diboll Circle in New Orleans.
🗓️ Don`t forget to check out the NOMA Museum Shop Book Sale online and in-store from Tuesday, 5/12 - Sunday, 5/17. Check out the link in our bio for more info on the sale.
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There`s always something to see (and smell!) in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden at @neworleansmuseumofart 🌿👃🍃
For this year`s Earth Day celebrations, Sculpture Garden Manager Thomas Torres led guests on a smell tour of the garden`s vast plant life, bringing an exciting, olfactory experience of the garden to visitors.
Don`t forget: the Besthoff Sculpture Garden is free and open to all, seven days a week. Find a moment this week to stop and smell the springtime blooms 🌸
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NEXT WEDNESDAY, 5/13: Producer`s Choice Film Series, "Serendipity"
Take a seat in NOMA`s Lapis Center for the Arts for the first Producer`s Choice event of the year, featuring a screening of 2002`s "Serendipity" and a post-screening conversation with Meryl Poster and the film`s screenwriter Marc Klein.
Planning on arriving early to the screening? Grab some popcorn, snacks, sandwiches, soda, beer, and a specialty cocktail from @cafenoma, who will be selling refreshments before and during the screening.
📝 Please note that seating for this program is offered on a first-come, first-served basis.
🔗 Learn more and get your tickets today at the link in our bio
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📚️🗣️ Calling all bookworms: the first session of @neworleansmuseumofart`s new Teen Book Club is coming up next Wednesday, May 13, from 4:30 to 5:30 PM.
NOMA`s Teen Book Club connects readers ages 13 to 18 to the museum and to one another through storytelling, culture, and community.
Next week`s book club selection, "How to Steal Like an Artist" by Austin Kleon, is a quick and inspiring read that helps creators navigate the fine line between inspiration and imitation.
🔗 Register for any of this summer`s Teen Book Club meetings at the link in our bio.
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📸: @wayanbarre
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Congratulations to artist Willie Birch on the opening of the exhibition "Willie Birch: Stories to Tell" at the Californian African American Museum (@caaminla). 🎉 Co-organized by NOMA and the American Federation of Arts, it will be on view at @neworleansmuseumofart from March 20 to September 5, 2027.
The first-ever career retrospective of renowned artist Willie Birch, this exhibition brings together groundbreaking works from 1968 to the present that chronicle his unique vision of Black American life and the interconnected nature of global art forms.
Born and raised in New Orleans and trained in Europe, Baltimore, and New York, Birch often speaks about “retentions,” a term he uses to describe evidence of one culture’s narratives and traditions within another. Throughout his career, Birch has explored particularly how African traditions have been retained in music, art, and culture in America as part of the Black experience and beyond.
The exhibition is organized chronologically and in three major sections, beginning with Birch’s earlier work in the 1970s, continuing through his shift toward papier-mâché in the 1980s, and closing with his more recent large-scale charcoal and acrylic works on paper.
Through his work across decades, as an artist, community organizer, and cultural provocateur, Birch questions why certain things are retained and others not, unearthing uncomfortable truths about American identity, but also offering possibilities for greater cultural awareness, aesthetic innovation, and expansiveness in the stories we tell.
"Willie Birch: Stories to Tell" is sponsored by Bank of America. Major support for the exhibition and catalogue is provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Henry Luce Foundation, Wyeth Foundation for American Arts, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Curated by Russell Lord, Chief of Curatorial Affairs at the Norman Rockwell Museum, in association with Amanda Hajjar, Assistant Curator at the American Federation of Arts.
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Discover artworks, collections, and stories in a digital format from NOMA like never before.
