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After eight years of hard work, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is finally about to open to the public. And you don’t have to be a Star Wars fan to get excited. The building itself, designed by Ma Yansong, is a marvel, and inside the museum, which feels like it’s hovering over Exposition Park, you’ll find 100,000 square feet of gallery space and more than 1,300 works of art from George Lucas’s own collection of narrative art—which ranges from Winnie the Pooh illustrations to a self-portrait by Frida Kahlo—not to mention two theaters, a library, a café, a restaurant and much more.
“A picture is very powerful. And stories are very powerful. And you combine them together, and those two elements create a society,” said Lucas, explaining his passion for narrative art during a surprise appearance at the press preview on Wednesday. Another surprise? The announcement of a gallery of Banksy murals on the top floor.
The fifth floor of the museum is home to the Murals gallery, a fitting home for the British street artist’s pieces. After navigating to the top floor from a rather tricky elevator system (you have to go to the fourth-floor galleries, then take the south elevators up one flight from there), you’re let out into a room full of pieces by activist artists including Diego Rivera, Judith Baca and JR. But along the back of the gallery, there are two walls of works by Banksy.
You’ll probably recognize some of the pieces (like the silhouette of a little girl letting go of a heart-shaped balloon), which have been re-stenciled onto surfaces here. One stencil itself is even on display, providing an interesting look at the British street artist’s process. The gallery also includes an installation that you’re not allowed to photograph—a golf scene, complete with a cart with a bucket of KFC sitting unattended, that calls to mind a certain sitting president. There’s also a brand-new piece by Banksy outside the Children’s Stories gallery: a pair of lion statues with a cat-who-ate-the-canary vibe and a suspiciously missing lion tamer.
But beyond Banksy, here’s everything else you need to know about the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art’s opening.
When does the Lucas Museum open?
The museum officially opens on September 22—though that’s a Tuesday, and the museum’s hours indicate it’ll be closed on Tuesdays, so the first date you can actually visit is Wednesday, September 23. This Saturday, September 5, a week of previews just for founding members of the museum begins. And on September 13, there will be a free community day for the museum’s neighbors, the residents of South L.A., to visit for free before the general public.
How can I visit the Lucas Museum?
Tickets are on sale now. You’ll need to choose a date between September 23 and February 28, 2027, for your visit at the time of purchase and can snag as many as nine tickets for your time slot. Ticket prices for the Lucas Museum are nearly exactly in line with the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ pricing. Adult tickets are $25, tickets for seniors 65 and over are $21, and children and teens 17 and under will get in for free.
Will there be free admission?
No free days have been announced yet, though we have a hunch there will be some coming, so stay tuned. But museum members can always visit for free, as can residents in the 90037 zip code once they procure a LM37 pass.
What can you see for free at the museum?
That being said, there are still a lot of elements of the museum you can enjoy even without buying a ticket. To be honest, just seeing the building in person is a treat. It’s unlike anything else in L.A., and it’s easy to forget you’re in Exposition Park when you’re there—much less that it used to be an asphalt parking lot. The grounds around the park—acres of green space designed by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA—are also free to enjoy, as are the bronze sculptures scattered throughout. You’ll spy everyone from Rosie the Riveter to Princess Leia taking on Jabba the Hutt. Yoda and Grogu even make an appearance in a fountain near the outdoor amphitheater.
Another free offering, and one of our favorite things about the museum, period, is the Research Library. On the second floor up from the Education Lobby and across from the main entrance, there’s a cozy but transporting library that’s totally free to visit. The shelves are full of books relating to the topics and artists covered in the museum—from a book about Universal Monsters to comic omnibuses to artist biographies—and you can pick any book and sit and read entirely for free. The three stories of shelves (though the public can’t climb to the upper two) read like an Arts and Craft version of the library from Beauty and the Beast, and the views of the park outside the floor-to-ceiling windows are likewise beautiful. The catalog will soon be available online, so you can pick out books ahead of time, though note that it’s a non-circulating library (meaning you can’t check books out to bring home).
What else is on display at the Lucas Museum?
What isn’t on display at the Lucas Museum? Though there’s an emphasis on narrative art, that encompasses more than you might think. There are over a dozen themed galleries, from History and Sports to Love and Family. That means in one spin you can see a self-portrait by Frida Kahlo, a painting of dogs playing poker and Christian Bale’s Batman costume from The Dark Knight. It also means that pieces by Van Gogh, Renoir and even a sketch by Picasso are sprinkled throughout unexpectedly, without much fanfare.
Normal Rockwell’s presence is especially strong here. There’s a large gallery devoted to his work (with a fun bronze statue of his Triple Self-Portrait), and you’ll also find pieces by the Saturday Evening Post illustrator sprinkled into other galleries. There are individual galleries devoted to N.C. Wyeth, Jessie Willcox Smith, Maxfield Parrish, Frank Frazetta and Thomas Hart Benton, too.
My favorite galleries were the Comics gallery, where you can see original Peanuts comics strips, and the Children’s Stories gallery, which is nostalgic in the best way, with illustrations from fairy tales and Where the Wild Things Are, and paintings from Eloise and Madeline.
On the ground floor, beyond the gift shop, there’s a gallery dedicated to “the history of narrative art,” which attempts to represent the sprawling history of the medium throughout the ages via a mix of immersive technology, digital reproductions and original pieces from the museum’s collection dating back to ancient Egypt.
What about Star Wars?
Don’t worry: Star Wars fans won’t be disappointed here. One of the most eye-catching galleries is titled simply Cinema (also known by its debut presentation title, “Star Wars in Motion”), which has on display a gaggle of galactic vehicles. You can see models of AT-ATs, digital art from the prequels and costumes—some screen-worn—on life-size re-creations of Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. And of course, C-3PO and R2-D2 make an appearance, in front of character concept art from 1975.
Where can you eat at the museum?
There’s a ground-floor cafeteria with a selection of stations to pick from: Fill up on pizza, ramen, tacos, salads, chicken tenders, burgers, fries and soft-serve. There’s also a Starbucks in the dining area. For a more leisurely meal, there’s the Skywalker Grill on the top floor, a full-service restaurant serving up American cuisine and sweeping city views. It’s open to the public, as well as museum visitors.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is located at One Lucas Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90037 in Exposition Park. Its opening hours are Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10am to 5pm, Friday 10am to 9pm, Saturday 9am to 9pm and Sunday 9am to 5pm.