Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Sets Opening for September 2026

After many years of starting over and delaying the plan, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art now has a set opening date. The new cultural place, meant to honor illustrated stories, was created by Star Wars creator George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson. It will start welcoming visitors on September 22, 2026.

Mellody Hobson explained the museum's purpose in a statement, saying, "This is a museum of the people's art.

 The images are illustrations of beliefs we live with every day. For that reason, this art belongs to everyone."

The museum will be built in Los Angeles' Exposition Park and will include 35 galleries spread across 100,000 square feet.

 Each gallery will be named after different aspects of human life, like love, family, community, play, work, and sports. The museum will have a permanent collection with more than 40,000 pieces, showing some of the most important works of narrative art.

George Lucas said, "Stories are mythology, and when illustrated, they help humans understand the mysteries of life."

The collection will include works by famous artists such as Norman Rockwell, Kadir Nelson, Jessie Willcox Smith, N. C. Wyeth, Beatrix Potter, Judy Baca, Frida Kahlo, and Maxfield Parrish.

 It will also feature comic artists like Winsor McCay, Jack Kirby, Frank Frazetta, Alison Bechdel, Chris Ware, and R. Crumb. Photographers like Gordon Parks, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Dorothea Lange will be represented too.

The museum will also showcase the Lucas Archives, which includes models, props, concept art, and costumes from George Lucas's film career.

On Wednesday, they also shared some new artworks that will be displayed.

 These include Frazetta's cover for A Princess of Mars (1970), Rockwell's cover for The Saturday Evening Post titled "Age of Romance," an unpublished Potter drawing called "Mouse with a spinning wheel" (1890), "The Duel on the Beach," a Wyeth illustration from Ladies' Home Journal (1926), and Ernie Barnes' "The Critics Corner" (2007).

George Lucas and the museum have been traveling around to get people excited about the museum.

 In July, he made his first public appearance at the San Diego International Comic-Con, joining a panel with filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, Star Wars production designer Doug Chiang, and moderator Queen Latifah. In October, the museum had a presence at the New York Comic Con with a panel moderated by Martin Scorsese and featuring guests Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell, both known for their fantasy paintings and posters.

The museum is expected to cost around $1 billion and has been in the works for over a decade.

 The founders considered locations in San Francisco and Chicago before political and public challenges made those plans difficult. After choosing Los Angeles in 2017, construction began in 2018 with the goal of opening in 2021. Due to delays from the pandemic and construction issues, the opening was first pushed to 2023, then to 2025, and finally to 2026.