NEW ORLEANS, LA – The Lupin Foundation Center for Decorative Arts on the second floor of the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) has reopened with a new installation drawn from the permanent collection, and for the first time includes modern and contemporary design. This reimagined permanent installation highlights connections between society and design, craft and manufacture, and fine art and functional household items.
“We are thrilled to present vibrant decorative arts galleries that showcase art and design across a variety of materials and centuries, including, for the first time, 20th century contemporary design,” said Susan Taylor, NOMA’s Montine McDaniel Freeman Director.
The newly reinstalled Lupin Galleries showcase a chronology of the Decorative Arts, beginning with 18th-century Rococo and Neoclassical furniture, paintings, silver, glass and ceramics, including works from the foundational 1955 gift of the Billups glass collection and the 1978 gift of Americana from the Kuntz Family collection. An array of works explore the ornamented excess of 19th-century Victorian styles, including important collections of “Vieux Paris” porcelain and Palissy ware. Works from the turn-of-the-century Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau, and Secessionists styles feature progressive designs by Christopher Dresser, Gustav Stickley, Louis Comfort Tiffany, as well as a focus on New Orleans’s contribution to design reform through works made at Newcomb College. Also highlighted are modernist and midcentury modern installations, including a wall of chairs designed by Ray and Charles Eames. Important works of glass from all periods punctuate the Lupin Galleries.
For the first time in the museum’s history, NOMA’s Decorative Arts galleries feature a gallery dedicated to recent design. The blurred borders between craft, design, and fine art are explored with the engaging patterns and bold materials in objects created in the past 20 years. New acquisitions by designers Ron Arad and Marcel Wanders anchor this gallery, with Wanders’ barbed-wire cloud-like chandelier hanging above the exaggerated profile of Arad’s The Big Easy Chair. Contemporary glass works include household names like Dale Chihuly, as well as New Orleans’s own Gene Koss.
The new Elise M. Besthoff Charitable Foundation Gallery will feature rotating exhibitions. The gallery now features NOMA-commissioned “The Second Line” Cocktail Service by Scottish designer Geoffrey Mann. Combining several media, the glass cocktail service based on 3D printed designs is paired with an animated video that connects the design to the jazz music and conversation of New Orleans’ Frenchmen Street, on view through May 2019.
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About NOMA and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden
The New Orleans Museum of Art, founded in 1910 by Isaac Delgado, houses more than 40,000 art objects encompassing 5,000 years of world art. Works from the permanent collection, along with continuously changing special exhibitions, are on view in the museum’s 46 galleries Fridays from 10AM to 9PM; Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 10AM to 6PM; Saturdays from 10AM to 5PM and Sundays from 11AM to 5PM. NOMA offers docent-guided tours at 1PM every Tuesday – Sunday. The adjoining Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden features work by over 60 artists, including several of the 20th century’s master sculptors. The Sculpture Garden is open seven days a week: 9AM to 6PM. The New Orleans Museum of Art and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden are fully accessible to handicapped visitors and wheelchairs are available from the front desk. For more information about NOMA, call (504) 658-4100 or visit www.noma.org. Museum admission is free on Wednesdays for Louisiana residents, courtesy of The Helis Foundation. Teenagers (ages 13-19) receive free admission every day through the end of the year, courtesy of The Helis Foundation.
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For additional information and hi-res images, contact Margaux Krane: 504.658.4106 | mkrane@noma.org
Gallery of lo-res images
