The LSU Museum of Art will represent Louisiana in a new Smithsonian loan program

The Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., is home to one of the country’s most important collections of modern and contemporary art anywhere. Now, some of those works will be on loan to 51 selected museums nationwide, including the LSU Museum of Art in downtown Baton Rouge.

“It’s a big deal to have art of this caliber from a national collection,” says LSUMOA executive director Mark Tullos. “We’re really proud.”

Timed with America’s 250th anniversary, the “50 for 50” program lends artwork from the Hirshhorn to one museum in each of the 50 states and Puerto Rico. LSUMOA is representing Louisiana in the first-ever program.

Alice Walton’s Art Bridges Foundation, which has long aimed to make fine art more accessible, is funding the program. It worked with the Hirshhorn to select museums that represent a wide swath of the American experience. Some institutions are in major metropolitan areas, but about 30% are in communities with populations of 150,000 or fewer. And like LSUMOA, 20% of the chosen museums are affiliated with a university or college.

Other similar institutions include Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine, and the University of Texas’ Blanton Museum of Art in Austin.

“Those are well-respected institutions,” Tullos says. “We’re in really good company.”

The “50 for 50” selection is one of several recent accomplishments for LSUMOA, Tullos says. Over the last two years, it has earned accreditation from both the American Association of Museums and the American Association of Academic Museums and Galleries. On a mission to raise its local profile, it also launched a buzzy new annual fundraiser in March, Southern Palette, which attracted about 2,500 patrons with a regional chefs’ showcase.

The museum has come a long way since its previous life as a small period room collection in the LSU Memorial Tower. A move to the Shaw Center for the Arts in 2005 allowed it to expand into a modern 13,000-square-foot space, displaying part of its significant collection of Louisiana and Southern art along with Chinese jade, Newcomb pottery and decorative arts. The museum also hosts many traveling exhibitions every year, including some by nationally renowned artists.

LSUMOA doesn’t know yet what Hirshhorn pieces it will host, or when they will arrive, says curator Michelle Schulte, who submitted the “50 for 50” application. Among the pieces she requested from a possible list of 200 were works by Jackson Pollock, William de Kooning, Louise Nevelson and Edward Hopper.

Once LSUMOA is notified which piece, or pieces, the museum will receive, Schulte will build an exhibit around them, pulling from LSUMOA’s catalog and private collections to create a compelling visual narrative.

Schulte says she’s looking forward to creating an exhibit that allows the museum to reach past its regional perspective. “I really wanted to expand the idea of contemporary art beyond our own region, and to bring in pieces that represent other parts of the United States,” she says.

Coinciding with the “50 for 50” exhibit, which will likely open next year, the museum is relocating its gift shop from the first floor to its main fifth-floor space. Visitors will be able to purchase local and art-themed items on their way out, Tullos says. “It’s the way museum gift shops are supposed to be structured,” he says.

Expect to see goods branded with whatever high-profile work arrives from the Hirshhorn. Baton Rouge will be its new home, at least for a while.

MOA to come

While patrons wait for the big reveal of the high-profile artwork that will be loaned by the Smithsonian, LSUMOA has plenty of other colorful programming in the works for this fall.

“The South’s Most Illusive Artist: Walter Inglis Anderson”

Sept. 17-Jan. 3

View more than 40 works by one of the South’s most beloved and mysterious artists, known for his vibrant depictions of Gulf Coast nature. The Walter Anderson Museum of Art (WAMA) in Ocean Springs organized the exhibition, pulling iconic pieces from its own collection and from the Anderson estate. You might have visited the WAMA, but this exhibit also includes rarely seen watercolors, block prints, ceramics and sketches. On Sept. 17, the documentary Walter Anderson: The Extraordinary Life and Art of the Islander will be shown at Manship Theatre, followed by a reception upstairs at the museum to celebrate the opening of this exhibit.

“Southern Gothic: Literary Intersections with Art from the Johnson Collection”

Oct. 1-Jan. 3

Southern Gothic’s weird, romantic and creepy traditions are assembled in an exhibit inspired by the writings of authors like William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Tennessee Williams and Toni Morrison. See paintings, printmaking and sculpture that represent a darkly Southern throughline from The Johnson Collection in South Carolina alongside selections from LSUMOA’s permanent collection and significant loans from the Louisiana State Museums system, the Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University, the Roger Houston Ogden Collection, and Baton Rouge art collector Jeremy Simien.

This article was originally published in the September 2026 issue of 225 Magazine.