The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, co-founded by filmmaker George Lucas and businesswoman Mellody Hobson, has announced its inaugural exhibitions. The ambitious survey will feature over 1,200 works from a founding collection of more than 40,000 objects, including pieces by Thomas Hart Benton and Jessie Wilcox Smith. The museum is housed in a 300,000-square-foot building designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects with Stantec.
This announcement matters because the Lucas Museum is a major new institution dedicated to narrative art, which Lucas has called "the people's art." Its opening will significantly expand Los Angeles's cultural landscape and bring attention to illustrators and narrative painters like Benton and Smith, whose work has often been overlooked by traditional fine art museums. The scale of the collection and the museum's focus on storytelling in visual art could reshape how narrative art is valued and exhibited.