[2] The first national coordinate college for women, Newcomb followed industrial trends offering intensive design training for decorative arts production.

The Museum has presented exhibitions featuring the work of such recognized artists as Mickalene Thomas, Pat Steir, KAWS, Joan Mitchell, Marsden Hartley, Chakaia Booker, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Diane Arbus, Nick Cave, David Smith, and Ellsworth Kelly, as well as artists with a Newcomb connection like Mark Rothko, Ida Kohlmeyer, and current faculty member Gene Koss.

The museum's collection includes important pieces made by Sadie Irvine,[12] Harriet Coulter Joor, and Marie de Hoa LeBlanc.

In the decades following Newcomb's 1918 relocation to the Tulane Broadway campus, the two stained-glass triptychs were installed in the Woodward Way breezeway fronting the museum’s interior façade.

The museum administers a collection of drawings, watercolors, paintings, sculpture, and prints by Newcomb College-affiliated artists such as Angela Gregory, Ida Kohlmeyer, Lynda Benglis, and Caroline Durieux.

In addition, the university's teaching collection includes examples of Louisiana portraiture, neo-classical sculpture, as well as modern and contemporary prints and photography.

Notable holdings are works by Hippolyte Sebron, John James Audubon, Randolph Rogers, Carrie Mae Weems, Andy Warhol, and Garry Winogrand.