George Lucas is not just lending his name to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, he is handpicking its big debut. Organizers say the filmmaker personally curated roughly 20 inaugural exhibitions, shaping an opening slate that leans hard into comics, illustration and a single cinema-focused gallery devoted entirely to Star Wars. Those first shows will draw from a founding collection of more than 40,000 works and put about 1,200 objects on view across dozens of rooms. The museum is scheduled to open to the public on Sept. 22, 2026, on an 11-acre campus in Exposition Park.
Opening date and the collection
In a press release from the Lucas Museum, officials confirmed the Sept. 22, 2026 opening and said the permanent collection now tops 40,000 works. Thirty-five galleries will fill roughly 100,000 square feet of exhibition space. The institution is framed as a home for illustrated storytelling, side by side with cinematic ephemera that fans will recognize from the big screen.
What’s on view
According to the Los Angeles Times, only one of the inaugural exhibitions is explicitly focused on film. That Star Wars-centered show is set to feature large vehicle installations, production designs, props and costumes. The rest of the opening lineup is organized around broader themes such as “Everyday Life,” “Civic Life” and “Narrative Forms,” with galleries highlighting illustrators and comics creators that range from Maxfield Parrish and Norman Rockwell to Mœbius and Jack Kirby. The message is clear: this museum wants to put so-called popular art on equal footing with more traditional fare.
Design and the campus
The Lucas Museum’s sculptural building is designed by Ma Yansong of MAD, with Michael Siegel of Stantec serving as executive architect and landscaping by Mia Lehrer’s Studio-MLA. The project is conceived as a five-story, 300,000-square-foot structure wrapped in 11 acres of new parkland. The campus will include two cinematic theaters, a library and dining and retail spaces meant to keep visitors on-site for a full day, according to the Lucas Museum.
Leadership and staffing
The ambitious rollout comes after a choppy stretch behind the scenes. The museum has yet to open, but its leadership has already changed and its staff has shrunk. Chief curator Pilar Tompkins Rivas departed in December and, earlier in 2025, the institution cut 15 full-time and seven part-time positions, many of them in education and public programming, the Los Angeles Times reports. Museum spokespeople say the reshuffling is meant to concentrate resources on getting the doors open on time, and that George Lucas himself will guide the curatorial and content direction.
What it means for Los Angeles
The Lucas Museum is set to arrive during an especially busy era for museum openings in Los Angeles, and it is betting that popular illustration and cinematic artifacts can pull in crowds that might not normally rush to an art institution. By centering visual storytelling that ranges from comics panels to movie props, the museum aims to widen how local institutions frame art, as reported by LAist. Founders have repeatedly described the project as “a museum of the people’s art,” and with a firm opening date and a Star Wars-heavy debut on the calendar, Angelenos finally have a countdown clock for that promise.
