{"id":556340,"date":"2026-05-04T20:11:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T20:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/?p=556340"},"modified":"2026-05-04T20:11:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T20:11:24","slug":"the-creator-of-star-wars-loves-art-that-tells-a-story-peek-at-the-collection-of-george-lucas-new-museum-before-it-opens-this-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/?p=556340","title":{"rendered":"The Creator of ‘Star Wars’ Loves Art That Tells a Story. Peek at the Collection of George Lucas\u2019 New Museum Before It Opens This Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Adventure, comics, childhood, love and everyday life are among the dozens of themes that will guide the curation of the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles<\/h2>\n
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Christian Thorsberg<\/p>\n

| Daily Correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Critics Corner<\/em>, Ernie Barnes, 2007, will be on display when the museum opens. 
\n Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/span>
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Ahead of Star Wars Day\u2014May the 4th be with you\u2014the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art offered its first glimpse at what visitors can expect to see when the Los Angeles institution opens its doors to the public for the first time in September.<\/p>\n

In a video released last week, the museum teased the wide-ranging themes for the 35 galleries that will fill its 100,000 square feet of newly built exhibition space.<\/p>\n

George Lucas wrote and directed the original Star Wars<\/em> movie, which was released in 1977. The hit spawned decades of sequels, prequels and spin-offs. Lucas\u2019 production studio also created the Indiana Jones films and a prestigious special effects workshop.<\/p>\n

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Aerial view of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2025 Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Courtesy Hathaway Dinwiddie. By Pedro Ramirez<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to the website of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the Star Wars<\/em> creator\u2019s passion for collecting began in college when he purchased an illustration of Alley Oop, the titular character of a 1930s comic strip about a time-traveling caveman. That foretold the future filmmaker\u2019s enduring interest in creative works that use visuals to tell a story.<\/p>\n

The museum, designed by architect Ma Yansong, looks unmistakably like a spaceship. It\u2019s the culmination of years of collaboration between architects and the museum\u2019s founders, who previously considered putting the museum in Chicago and San Francisco but encountered resistance in both of those cities.<\/p>\n

In previewing the museum for an audience at Comic-Con in San Diego last summer, Lucas said, \u201cThis is sort of a temple to the people\u2019s art,\u201d reported Andrew Dalton for the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

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Themed galleries on childhood and children’s stories will feature Christopher Robin at the Enchanted Place<\/em>, E.H. Shepard, 1928.<\/p>\n

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Several inaugural displays will be devoted to individual artists Lucas admires, whose artworks were pillars of 20th-century American culture. These include painters Norman Rockwell, whose artworks regularly adorned covers of the Saturday Evening Post<\/em> magazine; Thomas Hart Benton, who captured the quotidian rhythm of the rural American Midwest; N.C. Wyeth, described in 1907 by Outing <\/em>magazine as \u201cone of our greatest, if not our greatest, painter of American outdoor life\u201d; and Maxfield Parrish, whose artworks, known for their saturation, brought many children\u2019s books to life.<\/p>\n

Frank Frazetta, widely known as the \u201cGodfather of fantasy art,\u201d whose superhero and science fiction illustrations filled comic books, album covers and posters, will receive a gallery all to himself. Jessie Willcox Smith, celebrated for her illustrations that brought life to stories in magazines such as Harper\u2019s<\/em> and Scribner\u2019s<\/em>\u2014including a long-running Mother Goose series and covers for Good Housekeeping<\/em>\u2014will also be featured in a standalone gallery.<\/p>\n

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For a Mile, or Thereabouts, My Raft Went Very Well<\/em>, N.C. Wyeth, 1920, an illustration for Robinson Crusoe <\/em><\/p>\n

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other spaces explore more open-ended themes that give a museum of loosely defined \u201cnarrative art\u201d the license to push boundaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo two pieces of narrative art are the same,\u201d wrote ArtNet\u2019s Tim Brinkhof about the genre in 2024. \u201cWhile some depict entire stories from beginning to end, others focus on a specific scene that, in the eyes of the artist, encapsulates what the underlying story is about. Most narrative art, like most narratives, contain norms, values, and lessons that reflect the culture and time period of the artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Mexican Stand-Off<\/em>, Rafael Navarro, 2006, features in galleries devoted to comics, fantasy and graphic stories <\/p>\n

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gallery themes include adventure and architecture, school and civic life, anime and manga, childhood and play, cinema and comics, community and everyday life, family and motherhood, fantasy and science fiction, western stories and history, love and romance, sports and work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe images are illustrations of beliefs we live with every day. For that reason, this art belongs to everyone,\u201d Mellody Hobson, Lucas Museum co-founder, says in a statement. \u201cOur hope is that as people move through the galleries, they will see themselves, and their humanity, reflected back.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Fun fact: A smash success<\/p>\n

When Star Wars<\/em> debuted in 1977, it took in more than $2.5 million during its first six days in theaters\u2014an impressive box office tally.\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

One space devoted to murals will feature works by Judith F. Baca, Diego Rivera, and JR, Art News\u2019 Maximil\u00edano Dur\u00f3n reports, while a photography gallery will be filled with the images captured by Robert Capa, Gordon Parks, Alfred Eisenstaedt and Dorothea Lange. The works of Beatrix Potter, Leo Politi, E.H. Shepard and Jacob Lawrence will feature in a display on children\u2019s literature illustration, the Los Angeles Times\u2019 Jessica Gelt reports.<\/p>\n

Roughly 1,200 artworks will be on view in the museum when it opens, a fraction of the more than 40,000 items in the permanent collection. Only a bit of the museum will focus on Star Wars<\/em> memorabilia, including props, costumes, production designs and vehicles, per the Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n