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Visit The Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden

Presented by Museum of Fine Arts, Houston at Museum of Fine Arts - Cullen Sculpture Garden

Ongoing

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The Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden is a remarkable work of art itself. Spanning slightly more than one acre, the graceful site embodies "a geometry of playfulness," as trees, walls, lawns, and pavers come together to form a brilliant frame for outdoor sculpture. New seasons and different times of day make the Cullen Sculpture Garden an ever changing gallery for art and a welcoming destination for visitors.

Isamu Noguchi (1904 - 1988), architect of the garden, was also active as a sculptor and designer. Born in Los Angeles, California, he was raised in the United States and Japan. After completing his studies in New York in the mid 1920s, he made extended visits to Paris, Beijing, Tokyo, and Kyoto. While New York remained his home base in subsequent years, he continued to travel widely, developing a remarkable body of work which integrated modernist aesthetics with world culture.

Working with Houston landscape architect Johnny Steele, Isamu Noguchi selected the plants and trees for the garden with care, favoring native species when possible. Today the Cullen Sculpture Garden contains over 80 trees, including: Drummond Red Maples, Mimosas, Loblolly Pines, Drake Elms, Bald Cypresses, Southern Magnolias, Crape Myrtles, and Water Oaks. Other plantings include: Giant Timber Bamboo, Feather Bamboo, Green Pittosporum, Evergreen Wisteria, and Asian Jasmine. Along the garden's outer walls are Live Oaks and Cedar Elms.

The Cullen Sculpture Garden is home to more than 25 works from the MFAH's collection, as well as selected loans. Masterpieces always on view include sculptures by Henri Matisse, Alexander Calder, David Smith, Frank Stella, and Louise Bourgeois. Artworks specifically created for the site include Ellsworth Kelly's Houston Triptych and Tony Cragg's New Forms. The garden also features works by Texas artists, including Joseph Havel's Exhaling Pearls, Jim Love's Can Johnny Come Out And Play?, and Linda Ridgway's The Dance.

Pictured: Marino Marini, The Pilgrim (Il pellegrino), 1939, Bronze. Gift of the Hobby Foundation.