Lucas Museum of Narrative Art prepares for its long-awaited opening, hopes to spark imagination

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art begins its visitor experience as soon as people step foot onto the 13-acre campus in Los Angeles.

From the building’s cloud-like architecture to the cylindrical glass elevators inside, the museum transports people to a place that feels like it belongs in a galaxy far, far away. But, museum officials say they hope the landmark institution also connects people to art and community — and sparks imagination.

The Lucas Museum, which was founded by filmmaker George Lucas and his wife, businesswoman Mellody Hobson, is set to open its doors to the public on Sept. 22. The 300,000-square-foot, five-story building in Exposition Park has more than 30 galleries, two state-of-the-art cinematic theaters, a new park, cafe, restaurant, research library, and retail and special event spaces.

“In my work with George (Lucas), I’ve always felt that his life was changed by a spark,” museum CEO Tracey Bates said during a Wednesday, Sept. 2, media preview. “The moment that art first lit up the world of possibilities within him. He and Melody built this museum because they believe that everyone deserves that spark of inspiration.”

The Lucas Museum has become the home to narrative storytelling, such as illustrations, comics, advertising and animation, works of art that have not been treated with the same respect as paintings and sculptures, Bates said. Now, this artwork – which Lucas calls the “People’s Art” – has a home.

“This is a big celebration for us because it’s taken so long to get here, but it’s something that I felt very, very strongly about in terms of honoring illustrators,” Lucas said on Wednesday. “Artists, I think, who illustrate stories that are already written, and most of the stories are myths. They’re not real, but the illustrations make them real.”

The museum has been a long time in the making, museum officials said. In 2014, Lucas and Hobson initiated an international competition for the design of a new museum of narrative art, which was to be located in Chicago. But because of disagreements over the use of the site, in 2015, the museum was moved to California. In 2016, Los Angeles was selected as the museum’s future home.

“George started by aspiring to have a building so unique that 8-year-olds and 80-year-olds would equally want to come inside,” Hobson said on Wednesday. “Inside, he wanted to celebrate the illustrators who have often been underappreciated for their contributions. Those who have narrated our lives in pictures, often using a single frame to tell a story.”

For Ryan Linkof, senior curator and head of film for the museum, narrative art surrounds people every day, in newspapers, photographs, advertisements, book covers, comic books, posters, street art and movies.

“Narrative art is, put most simply, art that illustrates stories,” Linkof said on Wednesday. “That term ‘illustrates’ is important for us. We are interested in the work of illustrators who have brought stories to life, those who have excelled at translating words into vivid images. In this way, the museum is a platform for artists who have often been excluded from conventional histories of art, illustrators who worked on commission, creating images for the print and digital media that occupy a central place in our lives.”

Lucas has been collecting narrative art for more than 50 years, museum officials said. The Lucas Museum’s founding collection includes more than 40,000 works by illustrators such as Norman Rockwell, Jessie Willcox Smith, Maxfield Parrish, and N.C. Wyeth; comic artists such as Winsor McCay, Frank Frazetta, George Herriman, Jack Kirby and R. Crumb; muralists such as Judith F. Baca, JR and Diego Rivera; photographers such as Robert Capa and Gordon Parks; and painters such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Jacob Lawrence, Charles White and Robert Colescott.

The museum will show props and costumes from “Star Wars,” movie posters, and documentaries featuring artists and filmmakers.

Ma Yansong, architect and founder of MAD Architects, and Mia Lehrer, landscape architect at Studio-MLA ,also discussed their experiences of working to make the museum a reality for Angelenos and other visitors.

“We want to make architecture that makes people curious, that attracts young people, and a lot of visitors,” Yansong said. “They come here, they want to discover what’s in there. I don’t want to tell them what this is about. Someone says it’s a spaceship, someone says it’s a cloud, but we’re expecting people have their own thinking and idea.”

The diverse and enriching park landscape, designed by Lehrer,  includes hundreds of indigenous and drought-tolerant plants and replaces what was previously asphalt parking lots. More than 200 trees are being planted, and landforms are being created to evoke the terrain of Los Angeles as a plain nestled between mountains.

With access from both the east and west sides of the campus, the museum’s park creates a pedestrian connection between Vermont Avenue to the west and the rest of Exposition Park to the east, which was previously lacking. The campus’s green space continues on the top level of the building, with almost an acre and a half of landscaped roof.

“George challenged us to think about how the museum’s mission could be expanded beyond the building to engage the community,” Lehrer said. “Much of what was once asphalt could become topographical gardens sculpted to tell a story.”

To visit, timed entry ticket prices are $25 for adults, $21 for seniors, free for kids and teens 17 and under, and free for active-duty military. Founding annual memberships start at $140 which includes admission for two people. South Los Angeles neighborhoods will also have an opportunity for free admission, Bates said.

“The most exciting part, though, isn’t what we’ve built,” Bates said. “It’s what happens once we open the doors and let people in. If this museum sparks that same imagination in even one young mind that George felt 50 years ago, it will have been well worth it.”