NOMA’s programs include expanded wellness offerings, book club meetings for teens and adults, indoor and outdoor artmaking workshops, and an exclusive book sale in the NOMA Museum Shop.
Yoga and tai chi classes are offered twice weekly in NOMA’s Besthoff Sculpture Garden. 

NEW ORLEANS – Below is a calendar of upcoming programs and events at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA):
Sundays, May 10 and 17, 10 am–1 pm | The Embodied Magic of Nature Journaling: Illustrating, Observing, and Recording the World Around You
Beau Romeo of Rotglow Farms hosts a springtime journaling workshop series at NOMA. In this beginner-friendly course, participants will be guided in journaling with their preferred medium through each session’s focus—Observing, Illustrating, Inquiry, and Embodiment—letting their creativity support them in this exploration. Through each session, participants will tune into the seasonal plant life of NOMA’s Besthoff Sculpture Garden. These exercises in curiosity, observation, and recording can be applied to one’s own home and the natural world around us in New Orleans and beyond.
Registration is $25 for members and $30 general admission. Advance registration is required.
https://noma.org/event/nature-journaling-workshop/2026-05-10/ 

Tuesday, May 12–Sunday May 17 | Book Sale at the NOMA Museum Shop
During this one-time-only sale, select regular-priced books, including exhibition catalogues, artist monographs, and other unique finds will be available for 20–50% off, and sale books will be offered at a 70%+ markdown in the NOMA Museum Shop, in store only. All books online will be available for 20% off.
https://noma.org/event/noma-museum-shop-book-sale/ 

Wednesday, May 13, 4:30–5:30 pm | Teen Book Club: Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon (Ages 13–18)
NOMA’s Teen Book Club is a summer reading and discussion group for teens ages 13-18, designed to build literary engagement and connect young people to the museum through storytelling, culture, and community. Teen Book Club runs from May through August, with book selections from May through July relating to art and teen interests. In August, just in time for back to school season, our Teen Book Club selection will be a book that is included on the Louisiana English Language Arts required reading list.
Free for all participants, in person or via Zoom, with advance registration.
https://noma.org/event/teen-book-club-2026/2026-05-13/ 

Producer’s Choice: Serendipity (2001) and Conversation with Meryl Poster and Screenwriter Marc Klein (via Zoom)
NOMA’s popular film series returns. Experience films selected and presented by award-winning producer Meryl Poster, in conversation with special guests. Get behind-the-scenes insights and celebrate cinema as an essential art form. NOMA will screen Serendipity (2001) for this program. Following the screening, Poster will be joined (via Zoom) by the film’s screenwriter Marc Klein for a conversation about the film.
Tickets are $10 for members and $15 general admission. 
https://noma.org/event/producers-choice-serendipity-2001-and-conversation-with-meryl-poster-and-a-special-guest/ 

Thursday, May 14, 12–1 pm | Book Club: Beyond Blue and White: The Hidden History of Delftware and the Women Behind the Iconic Ceramic by Genevieve Wheeler Brown
NOMA’s book club meets monthly to discuss fiction and non-fiction books related to art in the museum’s collection and exhibitions. This month’s selection is Beyond Blue and White: The Hidden History of Delftware and the Women Behind the Iconic Ceramic, an absorbing work of cultural history by Genevieve Wheeler Brown that reveals the stories behind one of the world’s most coveted and beloved ceramic traditions.
Free for all participants, in personal and via Zoom, with advance registration.
https://noma.org/event/book-club-beyond-blue-and-white/ 

Saturday, May 16, 10:30 am–12:00 pm | Studio KIDS!: Make Your Own Sketchbook (Ages 6–12)
Join us at the museum on select Saturday mornings for Studio KIDS! youth art-making workshops. In this workshop series designed for artists ages 6-12, we’ll take inspiration from works on view across the museum and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden and make our own creations with a teaching artist. In this workshop, young artists will learn basic bookbinding techniques and create their own sketchbook just in time for summer vacation.
Registration is $25 for members and $30 general admission. Advance registration is required.
https://noma.org/event/studio-kids-make-your-own-sketchbook/ 

Wednesday, June 3, 6–9 pm | Soul-Sip at NOMA
Unwind after museum hours with art, meditation, and wine during Soul-Sip at NOMA. The program starts promptly at 6 pm and includes a seated meditation, a three-part wine tasting, and gallery tours highlighting wine-related objects from the permanent collection.
Registration is $55 for members and $65 general admission, including food, wine, and a meditation kit. Advance registration is required.
https://noma.org/event/soul-sip-at-noma-2/2026-06-03/ 

Friday, June 5, 6–9 pm | NOMA at Night: Celebrate Robert Gordy: Outside the Mainstream
Join an evening of live music, specialty cocktails and mocktails by Café NOMA, art making, gallery talks, and more, NOMA at Night invites you to see the museum in a brand new light. For this NOMA at Night, kick off Pride Month and celebrate the works of Louisiana-born artist Robert Gordy, whose work is now on view in the exhibition Robert Gordy: Outside the Mainstream.
Tickets are $15 for members and $30 general admission; free for ages 19 and under.
https://noma.org/event/noma-at-night-celebrate-robert-gordy-outside-the-mainstream/ 

Wednesday, June 10, 6:00–6:30 pm | Musical Encounters (Performer TBA)
NOMA’s Musical Encounters Gallery Talk series invites local musicians and scholars to host conversations connecting their practice to works on view in the museum’s collection. This month’s Musical Encounters program will be based on works on view in the exhibition Robert Gordy: Outside the Mainstream. 
Included with museum admission, which is free for Louisiana residents every Wednesday courtesy of The Helis Foundation’s Art for All initiative.
https://noma.org/event/musical-encounters-june-10/ 

Weekly Programs at NOMA

  • Gallery Talks Every Wednesday at 12:30 and 6:00 pm
  • Public Tours of the Museum Every Wednesday and Saturday at 2 pm
  • Tai Chi in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden Every Monday at 6 pm and Wednesday at 9 am
  • Yoga in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden Every Saturday at 8 am and Wednesday at 6 pm
  • Public Tours in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden Every Sunday, 11 am

Media Contact
Charlie Tatum
Director of Marketing and Communications
ctatum@noma.org
504.658.4103

ABOUT NOMA AND THE BESTHOFF SCULPTURE GARDEN
The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) and its Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden are home to innovative exhibitions, installations, educational programs, and research. Exploring human creativity across time, cultures, and disciplines, the global scope of the museum’s initiatives open a vibrant dialogue with the history and culture of New Orleans. The museum stewards a collection of nearly 50,000 works, with exceptional holdings in African art, photography, decorative arts, and Japanese art, as well as strengths in American and French art, and an expanding collection highlighting contemporary artists. The museum’s exhibitions and dynamic learning and engagement offerings serve as a forum for visitors to engage with diverse perspectives, share cultural experiences, and foster a life of learning at all ages. Recent exhibitions include New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations, Sand, Ash, Heat: Glass at the New Orleans Museum of Art, Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers, and The Orléans Collection (an exhibition of forty European masterpieces from the collection of the city’s namesake, Philippe II, Duc d’Orléans).

NOMA’s 12-acre Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden expands visitors’ experiences of the museum with one of the most notable sculpture gardens in the country. The Besthoff Sculpture Garden, free and open to the public seven days a week, has nearly 100 sculptures and outdoor works of art situated in a unique landscape featuring Spanish moss-laden live oaks and a sinuous lagoon surrounded by an expansive ecosystem of native plants. The works in the garden range from the 19th to the 21st centuries, with pieces by Auguste Rodin, Louise Bourgeois, Ida Kohlmeyer, Claes Oldenburg, Larry Bell, Sean Scully, Fred Wilson, Maya Lin, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Teresita Fernández, Ugo Rondinone, Hank Willis Thomas, and many others. The Besthoff Sculpture Garden features contemporary design elements—including a sculpture pavilion, an amphitheater, and an architecturally significant canal link bridge connecting the garden’s original 2003 footprint with a 2019 expansion. Its water management practices support the health and resiliency of New Orleans City Park and the surrounding environment. Throughout the year, NOMA hosts outdoor programs in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden including festivals, performances, wellness classes, tours, and more.