The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has unveiled the first exhibitions visitors will see when the long-awaited Los Angeles institution opens on Sept. 22, and the overall message is clear: this will not simply be a museum for “Star Wars” fans. The Los Angeles Times reported that the museum will debut with about 20 inaugural exhibitions spread across more than 30 galleries, featuring more than 1,200 objects drawn from the museum’s founding collection and curated by George Lucas himself. While one exhibition will focus on cinema and include “Star Wars” memorabilia, the opening program is designed to be much broader, presenting a sweeping vision of narrative art across popular culture, illustration, comics, photography, painting, and mythic storytelling.
That breadth is central to the museum’s identity. The institution has a founding collection of more than 40,000 works and will display them inside a 300,000-square-foot building in Exposition Park, with over 100,000 square feet of gallery space. The museum was co-founded by Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, and was designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, with Stantec as executive architect. The surrounding landscape includes 11 acres of park space extending to the roof, designed by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA. Altogether, the physical setting is meant to match the museum’s expansive view of storytelling as an art form that belongs not only to elite institutions, but to everyday people and mass culture.
The inaugural exhibitions reflect that philosophy. One of the opening shows will center on “Star Wars” artifacts, including large-scale vehicle installations, production designs, props, and costumes. But that is only one part of the opening lineup. Other exhibitions include “Everyday Life,” focused on visual stories about childhood, family, play, work, school, sports, and community, and “Civic Life,” devoted to portrayals of public experience in places such as courthouses, polling places, and political headquarters. Another show, “Narrative Forms,” explores storytelling across genres like fantasy, romance, adventure, and science fiction. These thematic shows are meant to connect very different artists and traditions through the common idea of how images carry stories.
The range of artists on display underscores how broadly the museum defines narrative art. Opening exhibitions will include works by Dorothea Lange, Norman Rockwell, Thomas Hart Benton, N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, Frank Frazetta, and Jessie Willcox Smith, alongside comics and graphic storytelling by figures such as Mœbius, Marie Severin, Jack Kirby, Alison Bechdel, Jim Lee, Frank Miller, and Rafael Navarro. Children’s literature illustration will also be represented through artists like Beatrix Potter, Leo Politi, E.H. Shepard, and Jacob Lawrence. This mix suggests the museum is deliberately collapsing the usual boundary between “high art” and popular narrative forms.
The museum’s stated purpose goes beyond showcasing famous names or Lucas’ private interests. The institution said the exhibitions “trace the evolution of human culture through storytelling,” ranging from ancient sculptures of gods and goddesses to Renaissance paintings, modern cinema, comics, and photography. Lucas has described his collection as “the people’s art,” and the inaugural program appears built around that idea: stories repeated across generations, in different media, reveal common themes of love, family, adventure, fantasy, and public life.
In that sense, the Lucas Museum is positioning itself less as a niche fan destination and more as a large-scale argument about what museums should take seriously. Its opening exhibitions suggest that comic art, illustration, cinematic design, and popular storytelling deserve to stand beside more traditional museum objects. The result is an inaugural program that uses the draw of “Star Wars” and George Lucas’ name to invite people into a much wider history of narrative image-making.
