Lucas Museum Countdown Puts Popular Art and Film History Under One Roof

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is approaching its September 22 public opening in Los Angeles, bringing a collection that stretches from illustration and comics to murals, photography and cinema into a new landmark at Exposition Park. Founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the institution is designed to argue that images made for broad audiences deserve sustained attention inside a museum.

The museum says its 300,000-square-foot building contains more than 100,000 square feet of gallery space across over 30 galleries. Architect Ma Yansong of MAD designed the sweeping structure, while Mia Lehrer and Studio-MLA created the surrounding 13-acre park. Those figures describe the campus’s scale; they do not suggest that every work in the collection will be on view at once.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art under construction in Los Angeles in 2022. Photo: Ron Raffety / CC BY-SA 2.0. Display size adjusted.

Member previews took place from September 5 through 11, giving early visitors a first look before general admission begins. The public opening is scheduled for Tuesday, September 22. Timed tickets are required, with adult admission listed at $25, seniors at $21 and free entry for visitors 17 and under, active-duty military members and several other eligible groups.

The collection’s organizing idea is narrative rather than medium. The museum places paintings, sequential art, magazine illustration, film design and other forms of visual storytelling in conversation. That allows a visitor to consider a comic panel and a production object as evidence of how images build character, sequence and belief, rather than treating popular art as a lesser category outside museum history.

Star Wars remains an important draw, but the museum has repeatedly stressed that it is only one part of the project. The opening exhibition “Star Wars in Motion” includes production objects such as Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder and speeder bikes from “Return of the Jedi.” Elsewhere, the institution presents work spanning centuries and cultures, including art that existed long before modern entertainment industries.

AP’s preview described Lucas’s ambition as creating a home for forms that familiar art hierarchies often overlook. Museum chief executive Tracey Bates said the mission involves placing widely recognized images in a setting where their design and cultural influence can be examined closely. The approach will be tested by the scholarship and interpretation surrounding the objects, not simply by their popularity.

The building itself is likely to become part of the attraction. Its long, curving form appears to float above portions of the landscape, creating shaded public areas below. The park is intended as more than a decorative perimeter: it expands the museum’s footprint into an outdoor gathering place and links the project to the wider cultural district around Exposition Park.

Continuous film screenings and a free research library broaden the program beyond conventional gallery visits. A destination restaurant and outdoor spaces add reasons to use the campus without moving through every exhibition. The mix positions the museum as an entertainment destination, an art institution and a research resource, although its long-term balance among those roles will only become clear after regular operations begin.

The opening follows years of planning, location debates, construction and delays. That history has made the September date unusually significant for Los Angeles cultural life. It also raises expectations around access, traffic and how the institution will serve neighboring communities. The museum offers a special LM37 pass for residents of the surrounding 90037 ZIP code, one concrete element of that local relationship.

For visitors planning an opening-season trip, the practical advice is simple: reserve a timed entry, confirm the day’s hours and avoid assuming that a favorite object will always be displayed. The museum is closed Tuesdays after opening day under its posted regular schedule, while Friday and Saturday hours run later than most weekdays.

The most interesting question is not whether the Lucas Museum can attract Star Wars fans; it almost certainly can. The deeper test is whether it can persuade visitors to see commercial illustration, comics and cinematic design as part of a continuous history of art. When the doors open, Los Angeles will gain not only a major building but also a public argument about which images belong in the cultural canon.

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