George Lucas: narrative art museum in Los Angeles sparks interest

George Lucas, the renowned filmmaker, is once again in the spotlight of online searches due to the opening of his highly anticipated Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. The museum, founded by Lucas and Mellody Hobson, celebrates its opening with a party for guests this Saturday, before opening its doors to the public next Tuesday, September 22.

Los Angeles's new attraction

The opening celebration, which precedes the public reception, will be co-chaired by Julie Bell, Tom Cruise, Guillermo del Toro, Greta Gerwig, Sir Lewis Hamilton, Jensen Huang, JR, Steven Spielberg, and Pharrell Williams. The event will bring together artists, filmmakers, philanthropists, and other guests for a preview of the museum.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, spanning five floors and over 27,800 square meters, is dedicated to visual storytelling across cultures, centuries, and media. Its collection ranges from paintings, illustrations, and photographs to comic books, murals, and cinema. George Lucas stated that the museum was created “to honor humanity's stories and the artists who illustrate them,” highlighting that the artists in the collection “connected our modern imaginations with our ancient emotions — with common beliefs creating community.”

A collection to tell stories

The museum features over 9,290 square meters of exhibition space across more than 30 galleries. The inaugural exhibitions will showcase over 1,300 works from the collection, tracing the history of narrative art. A first-floor exhibition explores heroes, myths, and sacred images spanning thousands of years, while other galleries focus on themes such as love, family and community, fantasy, romance, and adventure.

Among the artists represented in the collection are Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, Frank Frazetta, Diego Rivera, Gordon Parks, Charles Schulz, Robert Crumb, and Judith F. Baca. Mellody Hobson emphasized that the goal was to create a museum “unlike any other,” one that would bring together people from all walks of life and offer a diverse collection of stories so that more people could see themselves reflected in the galleries.

The legacy of “Star Wars” in the museum

The museum's cinema collection includes the complete Lucas Archives from 1971 to 2012. An inaugural exhibition titled “Star Wars in Motion” features conceptual designs, props, and costumes associated with vehicles from the first six “Star Wars” films, such as Luke Skywalker's landspeeder and the first physical build of General Grievous's Wheel Bike. Although it represents 7% of the exhibits, the “Star Wars” universe is also present in the gardens, with statues of Jabba the Hutt (being strangled by Leia), Padmé fighting a nexu, and a fountain featuring Yoda and Grogu.

Design and spaces open to the public

The building was designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, in collaboration with Stantec, featuring a curved exterior clad in over 1.200 individually molded panels. A 56-meter central arch rises above a public plaza. The museum is surrounded by a new 5.2-hectare park and gardens, designed by landscape architect Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA, on land that was previously a parking lot. The gardens include over 300 newly planted trees, an amphitheater, a meadow, a hanging garden, and 10 monumental outdoor sculptures. Access to these spaces is free to the public. Lucas Museum CEO Tracey Bates expressed the hope that the park becomes part of people's daily lives, inspiring creativity.

The museum also features two theaters, a research library free to the public, and the Skywalker Grill, a full-service restaurant open to visitors and the general public.

The research library and its treasures

The research library is one of the spaces that does not require an admission ticket. It includes more than 30,000 comic books, selected holdings from the Skywalker Ranch Library, around 3,000 art books donated by Steve Martin and his wife, Ann Stringfield, and more than 2,900 volumes from the personal library of writer and mythologist Joseph Campbell, whose work influenced Lucas's creation of “Star Wars.” Library director Joan Jocson-Singh highlights that free access “dismantles the notion that libraries are for a specific type of person.” The books are for on-site reference only, non-circulating.

With information from NBC Los Angeles, Time Out Worldwide.