George Lucas Opens Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles

The $1 billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will open in September with exhibitions celebrating storytelling across film, illustration and comics. A new cultural landmark created by George Lucas, the filmmaker behind Star Wars, and his wife Mellody Hobson will open its doors in Los Angeles on 22 September. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has been under construction for several years, largely behind closed doors, and is now preparing to welcome visitors in the cultural district of Exposition Park. The futuristic building, designed to resemble a spacecraft, joins a campus that already hosts the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the California Science Center, home to the Space Shuttle Endeavour, and the California African American Museum. A billion-dollar cultural project The museum, which cost around $1 billion to build, spans approximately 28,000 square metres. It was designed by architect Ma Yansong of MAD Architects. The complex is surrounded by around 4.5 hectares of public parkland created by the landscape architecture studio Studio-MLA. At its opening, visitors will have access to more than 9,000 square metres of exhibition space. The museum will display over 1,200 works selected from a permanent collection that includes more than 40,000 pieces. Twenty exhibitions across thirty galleries The museum will launch with 20 exhibitions spread across more than 30 galleries. Although the institution was founded by the creator of Star Wars, only one of the opening exhibitions will focus specifically on cinema and science fiction. That section will showcase vehicles, sets, props and full-scale original costumes from iconic films. Celebrating the art of storytelling Most of the museum’s exhibitions will explore narrative art in a broader sense, highlighting visual storytelling across many forms. The displays include genres often overlooked by traditional museums, such as comics, manga, children’s illustration and graphic novels. Among the artists featured are renowned figures in American illustration including Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish, alongside painters such as Thomas Hart Benton and Frida Kahlo. Another major section will focus on pioneers of comic and fantasy art, including Frank Frazetta, Jack Kirby, Moebius and Winsor McCay. By bringing together film, illustration, comics and visual storytelling, the Lucas Museum aims to highlight how narrative art has shaped culture and imagination across generations.