Inside the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art: 11 sights that define the new Los Angeles destination

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is positioning itself as one of Los Angeles’ most unusual cultural openings, with a 300,000-square-foot building, 11 acres of park space and more than 1,300 works spread across art, illustration, film and popular culture. Its scale and subject matter make the museum a major new attraction in Exposition Park, even before it opens to the general public on Sept. 22, 2026.

The museum’s preview period has already put George Lucas and Mellody Hobson’s long-planned institution in the spotlight, especially for visitors drawn to the mix of Norman Rockwell paintings, comic strips, children’s book art and “Star Wars” objects. The collection is intended to showcase what the museum calls narrative art, a broad category that emphasizes storytelling through images and objects.

Lucas Museum officials say the inaugural displays are only a portion of the institution’s holdings, but they are designed to offer a wide-ranging first look at the collection. The museum’s opening comes after years of planning and construction for a building that was designed as much as a destination as a gallery, with outdoor gardens, sculpture and multiple viewpoints woven into the experience.

The works and spaces drawing the most attention

Among the most talked-about stops is the museum’s “Star Wars in Motion” exhibit, which includes Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder from the 1977 film and what the museum describes as the first physical build of General Grievous’ Wheel Bike. Visitors can also see material from “Star Wars Detours,” an unreleased animated parody series created by Lucas years ago. The museum says “Star Wars” represents only a small slice of the inaugural exhibitions, but it is still a major draw for casual fans and devotees alike.

The Rockwell galleries are another anchor of the experience, with multiple works by the American illustrator on view, including “The Problem We All Live With,” which depicts Ruby Bridges. The museum also highlights pieces by other artists associated with image-based storytelling, reinforcing its effort to place illustration and popular imagery alongside traditional fine art.

One of the building’s signature architectural features is its large oculus above the entrance plaza, which gives the museum a futuristic, almost planetary feel. On the fourth floor, the museum’s viewpoints are designed to resemble a ship’s bridge, offering broad views of the campus and the surrounding park while underscoring the building’s sculptural design.

The outdoor campus, designed by Mia Lehrer and Studio-MLA, includes native plantings, bougainvillea and jacarandas, along with public seating, an amphitheater and a hanging garden. A north-side waterfall known as “The Rain” also functions as a cooling mechanism for the building. The grounds are dotted with sculptures, including figures from “Star Wars” and a Botero mother-and-child work.

Other attention-grabbing pieces include a Banksy work remade for the museum at Lucas’ request and display areas that pair movie objects with artworks in ways that invite, but do not force, interpretation. That approach reflects the museum’s broader bet: that stories told through pictures, objects and familiar pop-culture references can carry a museum visit even without a heavy layer of explanation.

For Los Angeles, the opening adds a new high-profile museum to an already crowded arts landscape, but one with a distinctly different identity. By mixing canonical art with film history and comic art, the Lucas Museum is staking out a lane that could appeal to families, film fans and museumgoers looking for something less conventional than the city’s standard gallery experience.

The museum’s public debut later this month will test whether that broad approach translates into a lasting audience. For now, the preview period is giving visitors an early look at a collection that is meant to be as much about memory, entertainment and shared cultural references as it is about museum tradition.

The museum opens to the public on Sept. 22, 2026, after member preview days that ran from Sept. 5 through Sept. 11, according to the institution. Officials have not indicated that the inaugural selection is final or fixed, suggesting that the gallery mix may continue to evolve after opening.