NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) announced that the Besthoff family has gifted a monumental work by sculptor Isamu Noguchi.
Titled Mississippi Fountain (also known as The Mississippi), the work was created for what has long been known as K&B Plaza. Designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft for Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill and built in 1961–62, the building is one of New Orleans’s most prominent examples of midcentury modern architecture. Mississippi Fountain is Noguchi’s poetic distillation of the river as a symbol of a vast American landscape, of its elemental power, and of relationships between earth, water, movement, and culture. The sculpture has been located at K&B Plaza (formerly the John Hancock Insurance Company headquarters) since its construction.
NOMA has begun preparations to install the work in front of the museum this fall. Lee Ledbetter and Associates have designed the plan for the sculpture installation.
“Isamu Noguchi’s Mississippi Fountain was designed in conversation with the architecture of Bunshaft’s plaza and building. Now, visitors will find new meaning as it transforms the neoclassical façade of the museum,” said Susan M. Taylor, The Montine McDaniel Freeman Director of NOMA. “We are grateful to the Besthoff family for this incredible gift, which ensures that the work remains in New Orleans and publicly accessible for generations to come.”
The work is a gift from the Besthoff family in honor of Sydney Besthoff III, who, with his wife Walda Besthoff, spearheaded the development and expansion of the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at NOMA.
“Our father loved NOMA and believed deeply in the importance of bringing great art to New Orleans. We are honored to donate this Isamu Noguchi sculpture in his memory and to know that it will be experienced by visitors for many years. We hope it serves as a lasting reminder of his commitment to the museum and to the city he loved,” said Jane Steiner, current NOMA trustee, and Valerie Besthoff, on behalf of the Besthoff family.
The K&B Plaza building was originally built for the John Hancock Company and was designed by Bunshaft with local architects Nolan, Norman, and Nolan.
The sculpture is a significant example of the celebrated collaboration between Noguchi (1904–88) and Bunshaft (1909–90). Their unrealized plans for Lever House (1951–52) in New York sparked a decades-long professional relationship, including collaborations for the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company headquarters (1956–57) in Bloomfield, Connecticut; One Chase Manhattan Plaza (1961–64) in New York; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (1960–64) at Yale University in New Haven; and 140 Broadway, formerly called the Marine Midland Building (1968), in New York.
Sydney Besthoff III purchased the building in New Orleans in 1974 to be the headquarters of the beloved Gulf South pharmacy chain K&B, founded in 1905 by his grandfather Sydney J. Besthoff and Gustave Katz.
Besthoff credited Noguchi’s Mississippi Fountain with inspiring the beginnings of his own collection of large-scale sculpture, which became the basis of the Besthoff Sculpture Garden.
The Besthoff Sculpture Garden is one of the city’s top destinations, featuring 100 works of art from the 19th century to the present day set in a unique Louisiana landscape. The garden opened in 2003 and expanded to its current 12-acre footprint in 2019 with renewed emphasis on water management, native plantings, and contemporary design elements. Regularly cited as one of the best sculpture gardens in the country, it has also been recognized internationally.
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.
For additional information , contact Charlie Tatum, Director of Marketing and Communications: 504.658.4103 | ctatum@noma.org