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New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) Review

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New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA)

  • Address: 1 Collins Diboll Circle, City Park, Bayou St. John, New Orleans, LA, 70119 | Map It
  • Phone: 504/658-4100
  • www.noma.org

Fodor's Review:

Gracing the main entrance to City Park is this traditional fine arts museum, built in 1911. Modern wings, added to the original structure in the 1990s, bring light and space into the grand old building, which has an elegant central staircase and many formal rooms used as galleries. The jeweled treasures, particularly some of the famous eggs by Peter Carl Fabergé, are a favorite exhibit, along with European and American paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, and photography. The museum holds one of the largest glass collections in the country and has developed a unique Art of the Americas collection that includes a range of Latin American and Native American works. Several period-room installations feature 18th- and 19th-century American furniture and decorative arts. The comprehensive Asian art wing includes a good selection of Japanese paintings of the Edo period; African, Oceanic, pre-Columbian, and Louisiana art are also represented. Temporary exhibits often favor local topics, such as Louis Armstrong or Edgar Degas (Degas's mother's family was from New Orleans, and Degas visited and painted here).

Henry Moore's handsome Reclining Mother and Child greets visitors at the entrance of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden (504/658-4100. www.noma.org. Free. Wed.-Sun. 10-4:45). Most of the garden's 57 sculptures, representing some of the biggest names in modern art, were donated by local pharmacy magnate and avid collector Sydney Besthoff. After Katrina, the garden suspended its daily guided tours, but you don't really need one to enjoy the collection, which includes major pieces by Jacques Lipchitz, Barbara Hepworth, and Joel Shapiro, or a stroll along the indigenously landscaped bayou that meanders through the park.

  • Cost: $8; free to Louisiana residents
  • Open: Thurs.-Sun. 10-5, Wed. noon-8
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