New Orleans Museum of Art

Last updated
New Orleans Museum of Art
NOMA Front Facade.jpg
Roy Lichtenstein's "Five Brushstrokes"
New Orleans Museum of Art
Interactive fullscreen map
Established1911
LocationOne Collins C. Diboll Circle, City Park, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA 70124
Coordinates 29°59′11.0″N90°5′36.3″W / 29.986389°N 90.093417°W / 29.986389; -90.093417
DirectorSusan Taylor
Website www.noma.org

The New Orleans Museum of Art (or NOMA) is the oldest fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans. It is situated within City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton Avenue and Esplanade Avenue, and near the terminus of the "Canal Street - City Park" streetcar line. It was established in 1911 as the Delgado Museum of Art. [1]

Contents

Museum

Interior of NOMA New Orleans Museum of Art, interior.jpg
Interior of NOMA

The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) was initially funded through a charitable grant by local philanthropist and art collector Isaac Delgado. [2] The museum building itself was partly designed by the former chief engineer of New Orleans Benjamin Morgan Harrod.

At the age of 71 Isaac Delgado, a wealthy sugar broker, wrote to the City Park Board about his intention to build an art museum in New Orleans. "I have been led to believe that you would willingly donate in the park the site for a building I propose erecting to be known as the 'Isaac Delgado Museum of Art'. My desire is to give to the citizens of New Orleans a fire proof building where works of art may be collected through gifts or loans and where exhibits can be held from time to time by the Art Association of New Orleans". The board approved his request and designated the circle, at the end of what would become Lelong Avenue, for the museum. On December 11, 1911, the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art opened its doors. Isaac Delgado did not attend the opening due to medical issues; he died soon after on January 4, 1912. This legacy lives on in City Park today and into the future.

In 1970/1971, the Edward Wisner Foundation funded the Wisner Education Wing, which is a three level addition to NOMA's left side. 1993 brought the opening of the $23 million expansion and renovation project to NOMA. The scale of the expansion and renovation, combined with amplified art acquisitions, positioned NOMA into the top 25 percent of the nation's largest and most important fine art museums. Today, the art museum is rated among the best art institutions in the country, having presented many unique and rare exhibits.

NOMA includes the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, an 11.5-acre (47,000 m2) landscaped area behind the main building. The gated garden features over 90 modern and contemporary sculptures set among live oaks, pines, magnolias, camellias, lagoons, several bridges, and a walking trail.

The museum also includes the NOMA Museum Shop, an auditorium for film screenings, artist talks, panels and presentations, and Café NOMA, a restaurant by Ralph Brennan.

Although City Park suffered extensive damage from Hurricane Katrina, the museum is elevated and located on relatively high ground. As such, flooding was restricted to the basement, and most of the museum's permanent collection was not affected by the storm. [3]

Collection

Renoir's Seamstress at the Window Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Ravaudeuse a la fenetre.jpg
Renoir's Seamstress at the Window
Louisiana Indians Walking Along a Bayou - Alfred Boisseau, 1847 Louisiana Indians Walking Along a Bayou - Alfred Boisseau (New Orleans Mus of Art 56.34).jpg
Louisiana Indians Walking Along a Bayou - Alfred Boisseau, 1847

The permanent collection at the museum features more than 40,000 objects spanning 5,000 years of art, including the Italian Renaissance to the modern era. [4]

NOMA's furniture collection includes important examples of 18th and 19th century American furniture and a small group of exquisite 18th century French pieces. Highlights include The Rosemonde E. and Emile Kuntz Rooms, exhibiting choice examples of America's fine and decorative arts heritage in New Orleans. The rooms were first conceived by Felix H. Kuntz [1890-1971], the Dean of Americana fine & decorative arts, books, and ephemera. His brother Emile N. Kuntz was charged with constructing and furnishing the rooms as a memorial to their parents. The rooms were completed by Mr. Emile Kuntz's widow, Julia Hardin Kuntz, and daughters, Rosemonde K. Capomazza di Campolattaro and Karolyn K. Westervelt. The Louisiana Federal Bedchamber, shows how a room of this type might have looked in a fine New Orleans townhouse or great south Louisiana plantation house during the first quarter of the 19th Century. [5]

The museum is noted for its collection of European and American works, including works by Degas, Monet, Renoir, Picasso, Pissarro, Rodin, Braque, Dufy, Miró, Jackson Pollock, Mary Cassatt, and Georgia O'Keeffe. The museum features a comprehensive survey of French art, including several important works painted by the French Impressionist Edgar Degas during his time living with his mother's family in New Orleans between 1871 and 1872. [6]

Among the permanent exhibition is a survey of local Louisiana artists, as well as other American artists. [7] The museum also features a significant collection of art photography with over 12,000 works from the beginnings of photography to the present., [8] Other holdings include collections of glass, ceramics, portrait miniatures, Native American Art, Central American art from pre-Columbian and Spanish eras, Chinese ceramics, Japanese painting, Indian sculpture and folk arts from Africa, Indonesia, and the South Pacific.

Events

The museum works in close collaboration with other local museums, especially The Historic New Orleans Collection and the Louisiana State Museum, in developing its special exhibitions. Special exhibitions in the past have included the treasures of Tutankhamun's tomb, relics of Alexander the Great and his times, artifacts from the Louisiana Purchase and that era, a retrospective of Edgar Degas in Louisiana, "Femme! Femme! Femme!" featuring depictions of women in 18th century French painting, "Carneval!" focusing on pre-Lenten festivals across several European and American cultures (including Mardi Gras in New Orleans), and several anniversary exhibitions related to Hurricane Katrina.

The museum offers guided group tours, teacher workshops, online teacher guides, and visits to local schools and community centers through a pop-up museum called NOMA+. The museum also hosts festivals, film screenings, music programs, lectures, and wellness activities [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musée d'Orsay</span> Art museum in Paris, France

The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edgar Degas</span> French Impressionist artist (1834–1917)

Edgar Degas was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.

Auseklis Ozols is a Latvian-born American artist and professor based in New Orleans. Ozols has been active in the fields of oil painting, watercolor painting, ink, and photography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Archipenko</span> Ukrainian-American avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist

Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko was a Ukrainian-American avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist, active in France and the United States. He was one of the first to apply the principles of Cubism to architecture, analyzing human figure into geometrical forms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts</span> Art museum in Arkansas, US

The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AMFA), formerly known as the Arkansas Arts Center, is an art museum located in MacArthur Park, Little Rock, Arkansas. The museum's most recent expansion and renovation was designed by architecture and urban design practice Studio Gang. During this time, it was closed to the public. It had its grand opening in April 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">City Park (New Orleans)</span> Public park in New Orleans, Louisiana, US

City Park, a 1,300-acre (5.3 km2) public park in New Orleans, Louisiana, is the 87th largest and 20th-most-visited urban public park in the United States. City Park is approximately 50% larger than Central Park in New York City, the municipal park recognized by Americans nationwide as the archetypal urban greenspace. Although it is an urban park whose land is owned by the City of New Orleans, it is administered by the City Park Improvement Association, an arm of state government, not by the New Orleans Parks and Parkways Department. City Park is unusual in that it is a largely self-supporting public park, with most of its annual budget derived from self-generated revenue through user fees and donations. In the wake of the enormous damage inflicted upon the park due to Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism began to partially subsidize the park's operations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum</span> Contemporary art museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts

The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is a sculpture park and contemporary art museum on the southern shore of Flint's Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts, 20 miles northwest of Boston. It was established in 1950, and is the largest park of its kind in New England, encompassing 30 acres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art Institute of Chicago</span> Art museum and school in Chicago, United States

The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States and the 14th largest worldwide. It is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park. Internationally recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, its collection, stewarded by 11 curatorial departments, is encyclopedic, and includes works such as Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Pablo Picasso's The Old Guitarist, Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, and Grant Wood's American Gothic. Its permanent collection of nearly 300,000 works of art is augmented by more than 30 special exhibitions mounted yearly that illuminate aspects of the collection and present curatorial and scientific research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon</span> Art museum in Lyon, France

The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. Located near the Place des Terreaux, it is housed in a former Benedictine convent which was active during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was restored between 1988, and 1998, remaining open to visitors throughout this time despite the ongoing restoration works. Its collections range from ancient Egyptian antiquities to the Modern art period, making the museum one of the most important in Europe. It also hosts important exhibitions of art, for example the exhibitions of works by Georges Braque and Henri Laurens in the second half of 2005, and another on the work of Théodore Géricault from April to July 2006. It is one of the largest art museums in France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Italian Art</span> Museum in Lima, Peru

The Museum of Italian Art is a public museum in Lima, Peru, under the administration of the National Culture Institute. It's the only European arts museum in Peru.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John T. Scott</span> American painter

John Tarrell Scott was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, collagist, and MacArthur Fellow. The works of Scott meld abstraction with contemporary techniques infused with references to traditional African arts and Panafrican themes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Greiner</span> American photographer and painter

William (Kross) Greiner in New Orleans, Louisiana is an American photographer and painter, now living in Fort Worth, TX.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">M.T. Abraham Foundation</span> Non-profit art organization

The M.T. Abraham Foundation is a non-profit cultural institution, which is part of the Israeli M.T. Abraham Group. Its headquarters are in Tel Aviv, Israel, and its part of the collection is on permanent display in Mostar. Its stated intent is to promote public appreciation of the most important styles of Modernism: Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Cubo-Futurism, Futurism, Constructivism and Suprematism by collecting pieces that can be loaned "for the sole purpose of display and study by public institutions," and to present most effectively the first half of the 20th century, a period that saw revolutionary tendencies shape the art scene.

John Geldersma is known for his wooden sculptures of what he calls "contemporary tribalism".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gustave Blache III</span> American painter

Gustave Blache III is an American figurative artist from New Orleans, Louisiana, currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. He is best known for his works in series that highlight the process and unique labors of everyday society.

A. J. Meek is an American photographer, teacher, and writer. Meek is known for his selenium toned silver gelatin contact prints made with an 8 x 20 banquet camera of landscapes in Louisiana and the American West and for images that are a balance between the documentary tradition and the fine arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katrina Andry</span> American visual artist (born 1981)

Katrina Andry is an American visual artist and printmaker. She is based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Michel Varisco is a contemporary American artist whose career spans more than twenty years. She works and lives in New Orleans, LA and is recognized as an environmental and social activist through her numerous fine art explorations. Michel Varisco's work spans multiple disciplines including photography, installation, assemblage and sculpture. She exhibits and publishes internationally and her work is included in public, private and corporate collections in the U.S. and abroad.

Russell Lord is an American writer and curator working in the field of photography and the history of art. He is currently the Director of Exhibitions and Curatorial Initiatives at the American Federation of Arts. Previously he served as the Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings at the New Orleans Museum of Art, a position he held from October 2011 to April 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dawn DeDeaux</span> American visual artist

Dawn DeDeaux is an American visual artist based in New Orleans, Louisiana whose practice has included installation art, sculpture, photography, technology and multimedia works. Since the 1970s, her work has examined social, political and environmental issues encountered at both the global and local level of her native Louisiana. In 2014, American Theatre wrote that she created "immersive, future-tense" work at the intersection of visual arts, electronically driven theatre and site-specific installation, with sculpture, drawings and digital technology "inspired by ancient myths, mathematical forecasts, symbols, visions of apocalyptic landscapes and utopian longings."

References

  1. Dunbar, Prescott N. (December 1990), The New Orleans Museum of Art: The First Seventy-Five Years., Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press
  2. "Delgado, Isaac". Louisiana Historical Association, An Encyclopedia of Louisiana Biography. Archived from the original on 2016-09-25.
  3. Marszalek, Keith I. (August 28, 2007). "City's Cultural Comeback Marches On". The Times Picayune. Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved March 14, 2011.
  4. "New Orleans Museum of Art, permanent collection". Archived from the original on 2006-02-22.
  5. "NOMA_mobile". noma.org. Archived from the original on 2014-02-19.
  6. "New Orleans Museum of Art, European art".
  7. "New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana art".
  8. Lord, Russell (2018). Looking Again : Photography at the New Orleans Museum of Art. New Orleans Museum of Art, Aperture. ISBN   978-1597114424.
  9. "New Orleans Museum of Art, special events".