NEW ORLEANS, LA.- NOMA opened Visions of US: American Art at NOMA, the first exhibition in the museum’s history to highlight the full breadth of its extraordinary American Art collection. American art, with a particular emphasis on artists working in Louisiana and the South, has long been one of NOMA’s key collection strengths. Through paintings, sculptures, photography and decorative arts, Visions of US explores evolving ideas about American cultural identity from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries to tell a rich and inclusive story about how we imagine and represent the United States.

Visions of US is the first major American art exhibition in the country to place the work of acclaimed artists from the Northeast like Jonathan Singleton Copley, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock and Frank Stella alongside that of their lesser-known counterparts from the South and West like Alfred Boisseau, Josephine Crawford, Sam Francis and John T. Scott. American art is often largely defined by the work of artists from the Northeast, and this exhibition shows how American artists working elsewhere—and especially the international port city of New Orleans—significantly broadened the range and scope of what we consider American art today.

“Visions of US presents an extraordinary range of American art that demonstrates the diversity of ideas and images that define as well as defy the American tradition,” said Susan M. Taylor, NOMA’s Director. “The bringing together of artists’ work from across the country is only possible given the rich holdings of NOMA’s collection. It is an exhibition that reveals an extraordinary collection while presenting a compelling argument for the differences that define the history of the American artistic experience.”

“For the last two centuries,” said Katie Pfohl, NOMA’s Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, “American artists have captured many different conceptions of the country and its people, from colonial American portraits that showcase the country’s early diversity, to the broad range of materials and forms to be found in 20th century American art. This exhibition celebrates the multitude of people and perspectives that make up our vision of the United States.”

Working in places as far afield as New York, New Orleans and New Mexico—and Paris, Tokyo and Havana—American artists have shown the country to be a place defined by nothing so much as its diversity. The exhibition uncovers dynamic points of connection between American artists working across the country—and even world—to craft the many different Visions of US that compose the country today.

Visions of US: American Art at NOMA features two ARTtab stations which allow visitors to explore abstraction in American art. Visitors can touch the ARTtabs to explore how artists like Stuart Davis and Jackson Pollock utilized color, line, and form as expressive qualities in their works.