New Orleans Museum of Art Neoclassical Facade
Why is it significant?
Stand before the monumental white neoclassical facade of the New Orleans Museum of Art, widely known by its acronym NOMA.
Key Facts
| Place | New Orleans Museum of Art Neoclassical Facade |
|---|---|
| Address | 1 Collins Diboll Cir, New Orleans, LA 70124, United States |
| Geo Coordinates | 29.98650, -90.09250 |
| Part of Walk | Bayou Saint John and City Park Heritage: Ancient Waterways and Live Oak Groves |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand before the monumental white neoclassical facade of the New Orleans Museum of Art, widely known by its acronym NOMA. Dedicated in December 1911 as the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, this palatial Beaux-Arts temple was designed by Chicago architects Lebenbaum and Marx to evoke the grandeur of classical Greek temples, featuring a monumental portico supported by four fluted Ionic columns, graceful balustrades, and a grand marble staircase flanked by royal palms.
The museum was made possible through a generous philanthropic gift from Isaac Delgado, a Jamaican-born Jewish sugar merchant and philanthropist who arrived in New Orleans as a penniless boy and amassed a vast mercantile fortune, donating his wealth to build a temple of art for all citizens of the Crescent City.
Today, NOMA is the oldest fine arts institution in the city, preserving a permanent collection of over forty thousand works of art valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. The museum is internationally renowned for its extraordinary holdings of French and American art, Italian Renaissance paintings, Spanish colonial religious masters, African tribal masks, and pre-Columbian gold. Among its most celebrated treasures are major works by Edgar Degas, who lived with his mother's Creole family in New Orleans in 1872 and painted his famous masterpiece "A Cotton Office in New Orleans" while residing in the city. The museum also holds the largest collection of Fabergé imperial eggs and jeweled boxes in the American South, alongside extensive modern masterpieces by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Jackson Pollock.
Gazing upon the pristine white facade reflected in the tranquil waters of the front lagoon, NOMA represents the artistic ambition and cultural sophistication of New Orleans. It stands as a world-class sanctuary of global human creativity.
Walk into the adjacent garden grounds to explore the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden.