Lucas Museum Opens to Public September 22 in Los Angeles

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Exposition Park, Los Angeles
(August 2023). Photo licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic via Wikimedia
Commons

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will open its doors to the public on
September 22, 2026, in Los Angeles — bringing a permanent home to one
of the most eclectic and ambitious art collections assembled by a
private individual in recent decades, according to Urbanize LA. The
museum's 40,000-work collection spans Norman Rockwell illustrations,
Jack Kirby comic art, Frida Kahlo paintings, Beatrix Potter originals,
Gordon Parks photography, and cinematic production art — united by the
concept of narrative: art that tells a story.

The collection reflects decades of acquisition by filmmaker George
Lucas, who built Star Wars and Indiana Jones into some of the most
commercially successful film franchises in history. His wife, Mellody
Hobson — co-CEO of Ariel Investments and one of the most prominent
figures in finance — has been a central partner in developing the
museum's public mission, according to Urbanize LA.

The Narrative Art Mission

The museum's organizing concept — narrative art — deliberately
spans the boundary between fine art and popular culture. By placing
Rockwell magazine covers alongside Kirby's Marvel Comics panels and
Frida Kahlo's self-portraits, the Lucas Museum proposes a curatorial
framework that treats illustration, comics, and popular imagery as
legitimate subjects of serious artistic consideration.

That framework has a particular relevance in Los Angeles, a city whose
cultural economy has been built on storytelling through film,
television, and animation. The museum's Exposition Park location places
it at the center of a broader cultural campus that includes the Natural
History Museum, the California Science Center, and the Samuel Oschin Air
and Space Center, which is under construction adjacent to the science
center, per Apollo Magazine.

A Long Road to Opening

The museum's path to September 22 included a seven-year construction
period, multiple pandemic-related delays, and a site selection process
that considered locations in Chicago and San Francisco before settling
on Exposition Park in Los Angeles. Construction began in 2018, according
to Urbanize LA.

The Art Newspaper identified the Lucas Museum among the most significant
museum openings of 2026 globally, alongside the V&A East in London, the
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and LACMA's reopening. For Los Angeles, the
opening represents the arrival of a long-promised cultural institution
that will reshape the artistic landscape of a city that has long sought
to elevate its standing in the international museum world.

References: Lucas Museum Narrative Art Open September 22 2026 | The Year Ahead 2026 The Big Exhibitions And The Key Museum Openingspodcast | Openings 2026 Lacma Lucas Museum Gulbenkian V And A East