Art in New Orleans

INTRODUCTION TO THE SYDNEY AND WALDA BESTHOFF SCULPTURE GARDEN
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INTRODUCTION TO THE SYDNEY AND WALDA BESTHOFF SCULPTURE GARDEN
2002 -- Tree of Necklaces, Jean-Michel Othoniel
--- The 1970's ---
1970's -- Robert Indiana, LOVE, Red Blue
1979 -- Three Figures and Four Benches, George Segal
1975 -- Reclining Mother and Child, Henry Moore
1973 -- Four Lines Oblique, George Rickey
1971 -- Una Battaglia, Arnaldo Pomodoro
1979-80 -- Two Sitting Figures, Lynn Chadwick
--- The 1960's ---
1967 -- The Labors of Alexander, René Magritte
1965 -- River Form, Barbara Hepworth
--- The 1990's ---
1999 -- Claes Oldenburg, Safety Pin
1999 -- Restrained (Horse), Deborah Butterfield
1995 -- Spider, Louise Bourgeois
1991 -- Joel Shapiro, Untitled
--- The 1980's ---
1989 -- Rebus 3D-89-3, Ida Kohlmeyer
1987 -- Standing Man With Outstretched Arms, Stephen De Staebler
1983 -- Pablo Casals Obelisk, Arman
1949-57 -- Sacrifice III, Jacques Lipchitz
Ossip Zadkine, La Poetesse
Week 8 -- Hyams Fountain, 1921
Quick Review -- Weeks 1 -- 7
Week 9
--- SECOND SEMESTER ---
Week 10 -- McFadden House -- 1920
Week 11 -- Reggie Bush Stadium
Week 11 -- Enrique Alferez -- City Park
Week 11 -- Enrique Alferez -- Fountain of the Winds
Week 12 -- Enrique Alferez -- Shushan Airport
Week 12 -- Enrique Alferez - marble chip and granite cast -- Molly Marine
Week 12 -- Story Land
Week 12 -- Blaine Kern -- Papier-mâché -- Mardi Gras Floats
Week 13 -- Hines Carousel -- Carved Wood
Week 13 -- New Orleans Museum of Art
Week 14 -- WPA in New Orleans
Week 15 -- Ida Kohlmeyer
Week 16 -- Review
Week 17 -- More Enrique Alfarez
Clark Mills -- Bronze Sculpture -- Andrew Jackson
Emmanuel Fremiet -- Joan of Arc
1897 - John McDonogh
Alexander Doyle - Margaret Haughery
Alexander Doyle -- Robert E. Lee
P.G.T. Beauregard
1860 - Henry Clay
Vietnam Veterans Monument
Louis Armstrong
Korean War Memorial
1910 - Jefferson Davis
1872 - Benjamin Franklin
Bienville
1957 - Simon Boliva
World War II
World War I
Lin Emery
Woldenberg Park
Clarence John Laughlin
John Churchill Chase -- The Rummel Raider
André Breton -- Surrealist
Chalmette Monument
Liberty Monument
Arthur Q. Davis -- The Super Dome
1909 -- Antoine Bourdelle, Hercules the Archer
Wrought ironwork
Sweetheart
Cemeteries
Caroline Wogan Durieux
Daniel French -- Copper & Bronze -- The Ladies
Edgar Degas
Audubon Park
balconies
COMPARATIVE TIMELINE
--- VOCABULARY ---
Abstract Expressionism
Abstraction
Academic
Art Nouveau (1880's -- 1920's)
Arts and Crafts Movement (1910 -- 1925)
Art Deco (1910 until 1939)
Baroque period
Beaux-Arts
biomorphic
Bronze
Classicism
Casting
Constructivism
Contemporary Art
Cubism
dynamism
expressionism
Futurism
Figurative Style
German Expressionism
Impressionist
Kinetic Sculpture
Minimalism
Mobile (sculpture)
Modern Art
Murano glass
Negative space
Neoclassical
New Deal
Nouveau Realism
Obelisk
Pop Art
Surrealist:
WPA [Works Progress Administration]
Curruiculm Objectives/Suggested Activities
Bibliography and Suggested Reading
Church Statues
Smithsonian Art Inventories Catalog (New Orleans)

City Park sits on 1,500 acres. It is the ninth largest city-owned recreational park in the U.S.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt in City Park.

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Drugstore tycoons Gustave Katz and Sydney J. Besthoff, better know by the initials of their stores, K&B.

The New Orleans Museum of Art’s Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden opened to the public on November 23, 2003. Located adjacent to the Museum (NOMA) in historic City Park, the five acre garden is one of the premier sculpture gardens in America. The garden opens with fifty sculptures by major twentieth-century European, American, Israeli and Japanese artists.

 

Henry Moore:

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 Jacques Lipchitz:

 

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Barbara Hepworth:

 

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George Rickey:

 

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Louis Bourgeois:

 

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and George Segal:

 

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are among the world-class artists whose work is included in the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Foundation of modern (Modern Art: General name given to the succession of cutting edge styles in art and architecture which have dominated Western culture almost throughout the 20th century) and contemporary art (Contemporary Art: Art of this time usually implies that the artist is still alive or the work was completed within the past twenty-five years). Sculptures from the Besthoff Foundation were recently moved from their former home on Lee Circle and make up the majority of sculptures in the Sculpture Garden. The new location amongst the lush backdrop of City Park will be a tremendous addition to the cultural life of New Orleans and the Gulf South. The garden will be open during regular museum hours and is free and open to the public.

 

Situated on a beautifully landscaped site, the garden incorporates an existing landscape of mature trees and lagoons with the addition of meandering footpaths, pedestrian bridges and new plantings. The garden was designed by the design team of Lee Ledbetter Architects of New Orleans and Sawyer/Berson Architecture and Landscape Architecture of New York. There is a gated main entrance:

 

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flanked by two pavilions located next to NOMA at Dueling Oaks Drive:

 

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Secondary entrances face City Park’s Timkin Center (formerly the Casino) and the Pavilion of the Two Sister’s at the New Orleans Botanical Garden.

 

Special care has been made to preserve the beauty of the natural environment in every stage of the Garden’s design. The root patterns of the live oaks have been preserved in the design of the walkways. A re-configured lagoon bisects the site and creates two distinct halves: a mature pine and magnolia grove adjacent to the Museum and a more open area of two-hundred year old, Spanish moss laden live oaks across the lagoon near the New Orleans Botanical Gardens. The lagoon has been reshaped to provide two basins, each of which contains one sculpture. There is also a small cascading Garden Pool which encourages visitors to interact with the environment as they carefully make their way over the stepping stones. The pine grove and the oak grove provide lush settings for the sculptures, creating viewing areas, or “galleries,” within the garden. Visitors who stroll through the garden will find themselves in awe of the beautiful setting and the incredible collection of modern sculpture.

Forty-one of the fifty works on view in the Sculpture Garden may appear familiar to New Orleanians, as they were originally part of the Besthoff Foundation formerly on view at K&B Plaza on Lee Circle:

 

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For nearly three decades Sydney and Walda Besthoff have been collecting modern and contemporary sculpture. Their interest in collecting began in 1975 with the purchase of an office building in downtown New Orleans to serve as headquarters for K&B Incorporated, the family-owned retail drug store chain. Located on historic St. Charles Avenue at Lee Circle, the building was designed in 1960 - 62 by the architectural firm of Skidmore Owings and Merrill for John Hancock Insurance. For the large plaza surrounding the building, the architects commissioned an eighteen foot high granite sculptural fountain by Isamu Noguchi. The piece, named The Mississippi, evokes its placement near the river while the soaring fluted column recalls the sculpture of Robert E. Lee, towering in nearby Lee Circle. Prompted by the acquistion, the Besthoffs began looking for other sculptures.


The first piece of contemporary sculpture purchased to accompany Noguchi’s The Mississippi at the K & B Plaza was a kinetic sculpture by the American artist George Rickey. The son of an engineer and the grandson of a clockmaker, Rickey was fascinated with knowing how things work. Rickey became intrigued by Alexander Calder’s mobiles and by the combination of order and randomness implied by kinetic sculpture. Four Open Rectangles Excentric, Square Section is an excellent example of Rickey’s space-probing pieces in which ordered geometric shapes are set in random motion by the whims of the wind. It was the first piece of modern sculpture purchased by Mr. Besthoff. A second piece by George Rickey, Four Lines Oblique, also demonstrates the artist’s interest in mechanics:

 

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This piece is among those presented in the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden.

 

After the establishment of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Foundation in 1978, the growth of the collection of twentieth century and contemporary sculpture began to accelerate, both with large-scale works displayed on the plaza and smaller sculptures on view throughout the eight-story corporate headquarters. From the beginning the Foundation’s collection has been open for public viewing. In addition to sculpture, the Besthoff’s have also been avid collectors of American photorealist painting.

 

In 1992 discussions began between the Besthoffs, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the City Park Improvement Association which lead to the creation of a Sculpture Garden to permanently display the Besthoff Foundation in an expansive natural setting. The Besthoff Foundation donated the majority of sculptures and the largest gift of construction funds. City Park provided the five-acre setting adjacent to the Museum. NOMA made the commitment to raise the necessary funds to constrct the Garden and maintain it in perpetuity, as well as including sculptures from the permanent collection of the Museum. Funds have been raised by the Museum from over seventy-five donors which include individuals, foundations, corporations and the State of Louisiana. The dedication and donations of Sydney and Walda Besthoff working together with NOMA and City Park have resulted in a great collaborative community effort that will be enjoyed by all generations to come.

 

A tour of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art will treat the visitor to a wide variety of works that celebrate the many styles of modern and contemporary art. The accessible, casual setting will enable residents and tourists, adults and children, art enthusiasts and new audiences to experience this world-class collection of modern and contemporary sculpture in a naturally inviting landscape.

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Much information on this site courtesy of the New Orleans Museum of Art.