From Lucas Museum of Narrative Art:
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will open its doors to the public on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, as a first-of-its-kind institution dedicated to showcasing the universal tradition of storytelling through images. Founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the Museum traces visual storytelling across cultures and centuries — from prehistoric cave paintings to illustration, comics, cinema, and murals—celebrating how stories connect us, shape belief, and help us see ourselves in one another. The soaring 300,000-square-foot building, designed by Ma Yansong of MAD with Stantec, houses more than 100,000 square feet of gallery space across 30-plus galleries.
Located in historic Exposition Park, the Museum's collection spans a wide range of eras and mediums of visual storytelling—from Artemisia Gentileschi and Norman Rockwell to Frida Kahlo, Robert Colescott, Frank Frazetta, and Robert Crumb—alongside film materials that include the complete Lucas Archives (1971–2012). Contemporary vehicles of storytelling such as illustration, comics, and cinema have not always received the same recognition as painting, sculpture, and photography. The Lucas Museum gives them equal standing, presenting art and popular culture side by side as part of one continuous visual tradition. The Museum also houses a free Research Library and the destination restaurant Skywalker Grill. Included in the 13-acre campus are new Park and Gardens designed by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA, featuring sculptures and new public green space for South Los Angeles.
George Lucas said, “The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art was created to honor humanity’s stories and the artists who illustrate them. The artists in this collection didn’t just create images, they connected our modern imaginations with our ancient emotions—with common beliefs creating community. Their work spans genres, media, and time. They deserve to be in a museum.”
Mellody Hobson said, "We wanted a museum unlike any other — one that brings people from every walk of life through the same doors. That's why this collection holds so many different kinds of stories: so that more people can walk in and, somewhere in these galleries, see themselves — and the world they know—reflected back. That kind of recognition is what we built this place to offer."
Lucas Museum of Narrative Art CEO Tracey Bates said, “George Lucas and Mellody Hobson have an unshakeable faith in the power of visual storytelling to inspire not just individuals but entire societies, bringing people together around goals, beliefs, and values worth sharing. It's incredibly rewarding to finally welcome the public through our doors. Every gallery, every program, every corner of this museum was built with our visitors in mind, and we can't wait for people to experience it.”
Ma Yansong said, “I am deeply grateful to George Lucas and Mellody Hobson for giving me the opportunity to create a building that will faithfully serve the visitors and the art while being as light and free as a cloud, or a dream. Designed with emotional architecture spaces, so that it is fluid in every part, and merged like a natural feature of the landscape into Exposition Park, the building invites everyone to participate in a journey of discovery and become part of the story of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.”
Inaugural Exhibitions
Unfolding through 100,000 square feet of space spread across more than 30 galleries, the Museum’s inaugural exhibitions trace the history of narrative art through more than 1,300 works from the museum’s collection.
The story begins on the first floor in The History of Narrative Art: Heroes • Myths • The Sacred, an introduction exploring how visual storytelling has produced mythologies that inspired devotion, forged communities, and shaped societies. Signature pieces from the Museum’s collection, joined in this gallery by stunningly faithful reproductions of immovable artworks, architecture, and archeological sites from around the world, trace these stories across tens of thousands of years. Taken together, these works show that visual storytelling is not only a universal human instinct but also a tool used by church and state alike to communicate values, assert power, and define belief.
Many of the reproductions on the first floor were created by the Museum using innovative technology in collaboration with institutions, sites and governments around the world. Examples include the Vatican Museums for the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the Louvre for the Winged Human-Headed Bulls from the Palace of Sargon II, the National Museum and Research Center of Altamira in Spain for ancient cave paintings, and Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia for the Aztec Sun Stone. High-resolution images and 3-D scans of the original objects captured by the Museum to create the reproductions have been donated to the collaborating partners. The result is a unique, single gallery encounter with works that visitors could otherwise see only by traveling around the globe.
Expansive galleries on the Museum’s fourth and fifth floors present works from the collection in installations dedicated to themes, artistic mediums, and the achievements of individual artists. Thematic galleries explore myths of love, family, and community, across generations, as seen in classics of children’s literature, images of courtship and motherhood, scenes of labor, sport, and recreation, and illustrated tales of danger and daring. Artists represented in these galleries range from Vincent van Gogh, George Bellows, and Jacob Lawrence to Beatrix Potter, Charles White, and Ernie Barnes.
Exhibitions devoted to specific genres of storytelling—fantasy, romance, adventure—feature works by artists including George Méliès, Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, and Ken Kelly. Exhibitions that showcase artistic mediums—comic books, manga, graphic novels, photography, and murals—include artists such as George Herriman, Charles Schulz, Jim Lee, Frank Miller, Takashi Murakami, Robert Capa, Gordon Parks, Diego Rivera, JR, and Judith F. Baca.
American artists who were among the giants of 20th-century illustration are honored in the inaugural exhibition with individual galleries. These artists include Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, Jessie Willcox Smith, Maxfield Parrish, Frank Frazetta, and Thomas Hart Benton.
Drawing on the works in the Lucas Archives, the inaugural Cinema gallery installation will present a special exhibition titled Star Wars in Motion, focusing on the land vehicles seen in the first six films of George Lucas’s saga. On view will be concept designs, props, and costumes associated with the films’ high-speed racers, hulking transports, and flying vessels, from Luke’s Landspeeder in A New Hope (1977) to the first physical build of General Grevious’s Wheel Bike in Revenge of the Sith (2005).
Paying tribute to architect Ma Yansong as a narrative artist in his own right, the inaugural exhibitions will also include an installation of drawings, renderings, and photographs of his visionary work for MAD, including the Lucas Museum and other projects.
A gallery on the fifth floor dedicated to large-scale, monumental storytelling in public contexts highlights how murals reflect history, identity, and shared social memory. Highlights include works from the extensive archive of Chicana muralist Judith F. Baca's famous half-mile-long mural, The History of California (commonly known as The Great Wall of Los Angeles). Additional highlights include large-scale works and studies by renowned muralists such as Mexican modernist Diego Rivera and French contemporary street artist JR, as well as iconic pieces alongside never before seen acquisitions direct from the studio of renowned street artist Banksy.
Inaugural Film Program
The Lucas Museum’s inaugural film program celebrates cinema as both a powerful vehicle for narrative and a groundbreaking technology for creating moving visual experiences. This dual nature is brought to life across two dedicated, state-of-the-art theaters: the Robert Flaherty Theater and the Slavko Vorkapich Theater. Designed as continuous, drop-in gallery experiences, the programs in the theaters allow visitors to come and go at their leisure, with films ranging from a few minutes to 90 minutes in length.
The Robert Flaherty Theater honors the documentary filmmaking pioneer (1884–1951) by exploring cinema’s power to capture reality in all its richness. It features films highlighting the deep history of narrative art as well as the creative processes of artists and storytellers featured across the museum’s inaugural exhibitions.
The Slavko Vorkapich Theater celebrates the magical mechanics of film—light, motion, sound, color, and editing. Named after the legendary experimental filmmaker who created groundbreaking montage sequences and special effects for dozens of Hollywood films from the 1920s through the 1940s, the venue pays homage to Vorkapich’s cinematic legacy and his tenure as Chair of the USC Department of Film (1948–1950)—the school co-founder George Lucas would later attend. Dedicated to exploring “the emotion of motion,” the theater features innovative short films from cinema’s very earliest years to the present.
The full film program for opening can be viewed here: lucasmuseum.org/film-program.
Architecture
Designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects with Stantec, the Lucas Museum was conceived to embody the emotional power of narrative art. Ma’s vision for an organic sculptural form set within the park pushes the boundaries of architecture to inspire wonder, imagination, and connection to something larger than ourselves. Set within an expansive green space, the building invites visitors into its story before they ever reach the galleries. Its curving form, designed without a single straight line, creates a fluid transition between indoor and outdoor space—an approach Ma has described as building an environment, or a scene, rather than a building alone.
Taking inspiration from the large trees of Exposition Park, Ma envisioned the building as an extension of this natural canopy. The building lifts at its center and touches the park ground lightly, at only a few points, to create a dynamic, sheltered gathering space in a central plaza. The building’s central arch spans 185 feet, providing Museum goers access to the Museum’s north and south lobbies. Hovering four stories above the public plaza, a central elliptical oculus offers a breathtaking view from the ground to the sky.
Principal areas on the lower floors, aside from the lobbies, include the two state-of-the-art theaters, a horseshoe-shaped library and learning space with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the surrounding park, 10 studio and classroom spaces, a shop, a café, and an approximately 10,000-square-foot gallery.
The building’s exterior is clad in more than 1,200 curved panels of fiberglass-reinforced polymer (FRP), which was selected due to the material’s ability to create smooth, flowing forms and its minimal weight compared to other materials. Each of the panels is uniquely shaped and placed to create the whole. The technology for shaping and fitting these exterior panels—along with other cutting-edge construction methods used by a team of more than 150 architects, engineers, and designers—began to emerge only a decade ago, making the Lucas Museum truly a building of and for our time.
Public Park and Gardens
The building is situated within a new 13-acre campus, including new Park and Gardens designed by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA, which creates much-needed public green space for South Los Angeles and serves as an extraordinary community resource for learning, art, and public engagement in the heart of Exposition Park.
Replacing what was previously an asphalt parking lot, the park includes indigenous and drought-tolerant plantings, more than 300 newly planted trees, a hanging garden, an amphitheater, a meadow, and a fountain conceived as a dramatic waterfall—offering places for quiet reflection and recreation. Designed to draw visitors through and around the building, the campus’s contoured topography echoes the natural terrain of Los Angeles.
The Museum’s focus on narrative art directly inspired the landscape design, framing the visitor’s experience as a journey of discovery. Drawing on California’s diverse topography—its foothills, valleys, mesas, and canyons—the surrounding gardens mirror the state’s dramatic shifts in terrain, vegetation, light, and scale, capturing the sense of setting, mood, and movement central to visual storytelling.
Plantings were chosen with the future of Los Angeles in mind. Drawing on the beauty and diversity of Southern California's native vegetation and Mediterranean climate, the palette includes over 300 trees among them jacarandas, oaks, pines and other species that give different areas their own character. Meadows, grasses, shrubs, and flowering plants bring texture, color, fragrance, and seasonal variation. Species were considered for their ability to remain healthy and resilient through regional climate shifts, while the landscape helps conserve water, retain soil moisture, reduce heat, and create habitat.
Like the stories that inspired its design, the natural beauty of the garden will evolve. Trees will mature, seasons will change, and the landscape will take on new meaning through the people who experience it over time.
The park also features 10 monumental outdoor sculptures installed along accessible walkways within the expansive campus. Free and open to the public, the Park also serves as an extension of the Museum’s galleries, presenting narrative sculpture that spans historical portraiture, contemporary global perspectives, and cinematic art.
Sculptures include:
- Fernando Botero, Maternity (2015, Bronze) – Exemplifying the late Colombian artist’s signature style.
- Antonin Mercié, David After the Combat (Bronze) – A late 19th-century masterpiece depicting victory in a dramatic figural composition.
- Mark Newman, Padmé Fights Off Nexu (2026, Bronze) – Capturing a key action scene from Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
- Mark Newman & Giovanni Nakpil, Princess Leia Frees Herself from Jabba the Hutt (2025, Bronze) – A heroic narrative moment rendered in bronze from Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
- Lawrence Noble, Eadweard Muybridge with Camera (2025, Bronze) – Honoring the pioneer of motion study photography and chronophotography.
- Lawrence Noble, The Introduction (2025, Bronze) – An iconic depiction of Yoda and Grogu, capturing the rich mythology of modern cinematic storytelling.
- Lawrence Noble, Willis O'Brien (2025, Bronze) – Celebrating the legendary stop-motion animation visionary and creator of King Kong.
- Prune Nourry, Selections from Terracotta Daughters (#1 Haoping, #2 Pan, #3 Huiyun, #4 Yindi, #5 Yue, #6 Ruixia, #7 Lizhou, #8 Jianwei) (2022, Bronze) – A striking series offering contemporary commentary on gender, heritage, and identity.
- Lucy Topete, Emiliano Zapata en Cuernavaca (2025) – Commemorating the revolutionary Mexican leader.
- Benjamin Victor, Rosie the Riveter (2025, Bronze) – Honoring the enduring cultural icon of American working women.
Research Library
The Museum also features a Research Library housing extensive general research collections, special collections, rare books, and archives, which will be open to all visitors free of charge. Spanning a sleekly curved, light-filled reading room on the main level and an additional two floors of research materials above.
The general research collections provide context for the themes, art and artists explored across the Museum’s galleries, from mythology and fantasy to stories of everyday life and imagined worlds. Reflecting the inherently interdisciplinary nature of narrative art, these holdings encompass art history, illustration, cinema, folklore, anthropology, literature, design, photography, children's literature and popular culture.
The Research Library’s rare books and archives expand this scope with materials dedicated to children’s literature, the history of illustration, graphic arts, underground and political comics, independent publishing, and the creative communities that have shaped alternative visual cultures.
Highlights include:
- works from Kitchen Sink Press, the influential independent publisher known for championing underground comics
- works by artists such as R. Crumb whose groundbreaking illustrations challenged conventions of visual expression and expanded the possibilities of the medium
- and the Research Library’s extraordinary collection of more than 30,000 comic books, with significant depth in comics of the Silver Age.
Enriching these special collections are select holdings of the Skywalker Ranch Library (formerly the Lucasfilm Research Library). Representing the foundational research consulted by George Lucas and generations of filmmakers, these volumes on mythology, history, anthropology, religion, and global cultures offer rare insight into the tradition of worldbuilding, revealing how creators draw upon shared stories, symbols, and visual language to forge new narratives.
Complementing these materials are approximately 3,000 art books donated by actor, writer, musician, and collector Steve Martin and his wife, Ann Martin. Focused on 19th- and 20th-century art, this collection includes books and ephemera on Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, Cubism, and contemporary art, along with holdings on figures such as David Hockney, Alexander Calder, Milton Avery, Winslow Homer, Roy Lichtenstein, Francis Bacon, Mary Cassatt, Helen Frankenthaler, and Cindy Sherman.
Finally, the Research Library is home to more than 2,900 volumes from the personal library of renowned writer and mythologist Joseph Campbell, whose groundbreaking work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, transformed the study of mythology, literature, and storytelling. Rich with evidence of Campbell’s own scholarly journey—including books containing his personal annotations and research notes—the collection is an extraordinary primary resource, spanning comparative mythology, psychology, religion, anthropology, ritual and cultural practice, the occult, literature, and the study of civilizations across the globe. Together, these materials illuminate the interdisciplinary pathways through which Campbell explored the universal patterns underlying human storytelling.
Campbell’s articulation of the monomyth, or “hero’s journey,” became one of the most influential frameworks for understanding the human experience. His ideas have had a profound impact on generations of writers, artists, filmmakers, and storytellers, most famously inspiring George Lucas in the creation of Star Wars. This collection will offer researchers, students, artists, and the public an exceptional opportunity to encounter the intellectual source material behind some of the most influential ideas in modern storytelling.
Restaurant
Skywalker Grill, the signature full-service restaurant atop the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, draws inspiration from the welcoming spirit of George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch. Designed by Rockwell Group and operated by Rhubarb Hospitality Collection (part of Oak View Group), the venue is open to both Museum visitors and the general public, pairing classic American cuisine with California-grown ingredients for lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch. Remaining open beyond Museum hours, Skywalker Grill invites guests to enjoy panoramic views of Los Angeles long after the galleries have closed.
The design blends contemporary and mid-century modern influences with sculptural architectural forms to create an environment that feels both timeless and welcoming. Cherry wood wraps the walls and ceiling in individually crafted panels, creating warmth and texture throughout the dining room, while softly illuminated white onyx Corian surfaces introduce a subtle sense of light and movement. At the center of the space, a sculptural bar anchors the room, surrounded by intimate seating areas designed to foster conversation and connection. The design extends beyond the main dining area to include an elegant private dining room with switch-glass walls that transition from clear to frosted for added privacy, as well as an outdoor terrace nestled in lush landscaping.
Opening Events
The Lucas Museum will celebrate its opening with a series of events including member preview days from September 5 through September 11. A Neighborhood Preview Day hosted on September 13 will welcome community partners, local business owners, civic leaders, students, and residents of the Museum’s 90037 zip code.
On September 19, the Museum will inaugurate the building with an Opening Night celebration co-chaired by Julie Bell, Tom Cruise, Greta Gerwig, Jensen Huang, JR, Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, and Pharrell Williams. Reflecting a collection that spans comic art and film to painting and photography, these co-chairs have all shaped our experience of visual narratives in distinctive and lasting ways. The evening will bring together leaders from across art, cinema, and philanthropy to mark the opening of the Museum.
The Museum opens to the public on September 22, 2026. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit lucasmuseum.org/plan-your-visit.
