One of our favorite museums in the city manages to be beautiful, educational and unpretentious all at once. New Orleans entrepreneur Roger Houston Ogden has assembled one of the finest collections of Southern art anywhere, which includes huge galleries ranging from impressionist landscapes to outsider folk-art quirkiness, to contemporary installation work.
On Thursday nights, pop in for Ogden after Hours, when you can listen to great Southern musicians and sip wine with a fun-loving, arts-obsessed crowd in the midst of the masterpieces.
The glass-and-stone Stephen Goldring Hall, with its soaring atrium, provides an inspiring welcome to the grounds. The building, which opened in 2003, is home to the museum’s 20th- and 21st-century exhibitions as well as the Museum Store and its Center for Southern Craft & Design. ‘Floating’ stairs between floors will lead you to select pieces from regional artists as well as Southern landscapes, ceramics, glasswork and eye-catching works from self-taught artists. The Ogden’s 18th-, 19th- and early-20th-century collections will be showcased in the Patrick F Taylor Library and the Clementine Hunter Education Wing, both under renovation.
