A few days ago, on September 22, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art finally opened its doors in Los Angeles, with some 6,000 tickets already reserved ahead of opening day. More than a decade in the making, and after earlier plans for San Francisco and Chicago, George Lucas and Mellody Hobson’s museum has arrived in Exposition Park with a much broader ambition than its founder’s name might suggest. This is not a museum about Star Wars. It is an attempt to give popular narrative art, from illustration and comics to photography and cinema, the kind of institutional recognition traditionally associated with fine art.

Walking through the galleries makes that argument much more effectively than any mission statement could. Norman Rockwell, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Vincent van Gogh appear within the same museum as comic-book art, manga, movie props, storyboards and production drawings. For Italian visitors, there is also a remarkable connection to the history of Hollywood filmmaking: a costume created by Italian special effects master Carlo Rambaldi and James Linn for Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Made of spandex, latex, and resin, the piece offers a fascinating glimpse into the craftsmanship behind one of the most iconic science-fiction films of the era. It sits naturally within a collection interested not only in finished images, but in how those images are imagined and constructed before reaching an audience.

Cinema is therefore everywhere, but it does not overwhelm the museum. Even Star Wars in Motion, the inaugural exhibition dedicated to vehicles from the first six films, is less about memorabilia than about the creative process behind filmmaking, bringing together concept art, costumes, models and original props. Elsewhere, the same conversation continues through illustration, photography, comics and painting. More than 1,300 works from a collection exceeding 40,000 objects are currently displayed across more than 30 galleries in the 300,000-square-foot building designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects with Stantec.

The museum extends that idea beyond its galleries. Two theaters offer programming ranging from documentary and experimental cinema to animation and anime, while the free Research Library includes holdings from the former Lucasfilm Research Library at Skywalker Ranch. And with annual memberships ranging from $140 for an individual to higher tiers reaching $600 for two members, the institution is clearly looking beyond one-time attendance, aiming to create a community around screenings, exhibitions, research and public programming.

That ambition was perhaps best expressed by Lucas and Hobson themselves on opening day. After more than a decade spent bringing the project to life, they described the museum as a home for “the people’s art”: the illustrations, comics, murals and photographs that shape the way we see ourselves and others, even though many of these forms have historically received less recognition from museums.

In Los Angeles, that idea carries particular weight. The city has spent more than a century exporting images and stories around the world, yet many of the disciplines responsible for creating them have traditionally existed outside the museum establishment. By bringing them under one roof, the Lucas Museum is making the case that popular visual storytelling is not secondary to art history but part of it.

Source: Lucas Museum Press