Inside George Lucas’s Dream Museum: What Fans Can Expect When the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Opens This September

Few cultural institutions in recent memory have been as eagerly awaited as the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the passion project of one of cinema’s most legendary minds. Co-founded by George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson, the museum was built on the conviction that illustrated stories connect people and reflect the shared values that make communities. The road to opening day has been long and winding, with the project shuffling between proposed sites in San Francisco and Chicago before finally landing in Los Angeles.

First announced in 2013, the museum was originally due to be built in San Francisco, then Chicago, before ultimately settling in Los Angeles. Now, after years of anticipation, photos shared via Vogue Magazine show Lucas himself walking the floors of the nearly completed space, and the images alone are enough to make the wait feel worth it. One shot places him beside sweeping narrative paintings, while another reveals a cavernous gallery staging a monumental cinematic artifact under wraps, hinting at what lies ahead.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will open on September 22, and the 11-acre campus in Exposition Park features a 300,000-square-foot building containing 35 galleries totaling 100,000 square feet. The building itself was designed by MAD Architects, the global practice founded by Ma Yansong. Its curving, spacecraft-like silhouette has already become a talking point among architecture enthusiasts, and the structure is no accident in its ambition. The project reportedly cost one billion dollars, which Lucas funded personally, including construction costs, his art collection, and an endowment of at least 400 million dollars.

The collection inside is just as staggering. The museum’s permanent holdings include more than 40,000 works spanning paintings by Norman Rockwell, Frida Kahlo, Beatrix Potter, and Maxfield Parrish, alongside comic art by Jack Kirby, Frank Frazetta, and R. Crumb, and photography by Gordon Parks and Dorothea Lange. Lucas is among the foremost collectors of Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish, while his wife Mellody Hobson has made a specialty of collecting the work of Black painters, including Norman Lewis and Kara Walker.

When the museum opens, visitors will find 18 thematic exhibitions curated by Lucas and Hobson, bringing together more than 1,200 objects across more than 30 galleries. The inaugural Cinema exhibition, titled ‘Star Wars in Motion,’ will showcase visionary vehicle designs, props, costumes, and illustrations drawn from across the first six films of the saga. From Luke’s landspeeder to General Grievous’s Wheel Bike, the display promises to be a feast for fans who have spent decades marveling at the worlds Lucas built on screen.

Speaking to the crowd at San Diego Comic-Con last year, Lucas described the institution as “a temple to the people’s art,” appearing on stage for his first-ever Comic-Con panel alongside filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, with the event moderated by Queen Latifah. The framing says everything about what this museum is meant to be: not a gallery for the elite, but a space where illustration, comics, cinema, and populist painting are treated with the same reverence as any old master.

The Lucas Museum will be the third major art institution to open in Los Angeles this year, following the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new David Geffen Galleries. For a city already rich in cultural destinations, September is shaping up to be a landmark month, and for fans of both George Lucas’s creative legacy and the broader history of visual storytelling, this is one opening that could not feel more earned.

Whether you’re drawn in by the ‘Star Wars‘ artifacts or the Norman Rockwell canvases, share your thoughts below on which part of the Lucas Museum you’re most excited to step inside first.