Ahead of its September 22, 2026 opening, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has offered a carefully curated first look at its inaugural exhibitions.
This early glimpse offers a hint at what’s to come.
The Full Picture
The new exhibitions will span more than 1,200 works across 100,000 square feet. But the first look stops short of detailing the full checklist of objects or gallery layouts. The museum preserves a sense of discovery for opening day.
Future Exhibitions Include:
- Architecture – the innovative designs that inspired the architectural vision of the museum
- Benton – selected works of Thomas Hart Benton’s depiction of American life
- Children’s stories – illustrations of children’s literature by Beatrix Potter, Leo Politi, E.H. Shepard, Jacob Lawerence, and more
- Cinema – a selection of production designs, props, and costumes from the Lucas Archives
- Everyday life – a series of galleries dedicated to visual stories about Childhood, Community, Family, Love, Motherhood, Play, School, Sports, and Work, expressing the myths that have both reflected and shaped modern American society
- Civic Life – artists’ portrayals of experience in the courthouse, the polling place, the political headquarters, and more
- Comics • Graphic Stories – a showcase of the museum’s deep holdings of American and European comics, including works by Mœbius, Marie Severin, Jack Kirby, Alison Bechdel, Jim Lee, Frank Miller, and Rafael Navarro
- Manga • Anime – selections from the Museum’s collection of the influential work in Japanese illustration and animation
- Frazetta – selected illustrations and book covers by the flamboyant Frank Frazetta
- History – paintings, prints, and illustrations telling (and pointedly re-telling) the stories of major historical events
- Jessie Willcox Smith – classic scenes by the illustrator of fairy tales and childhood scenes
- Murals – large-scale, public works of narrative art by Judith F. Baca, Diego Rivera, and JR
- Narrative Forms: a series of galleries highlighting narrative art across genres of Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, and Science Fiction by artists including Julie Bell, Boris Vallejo, Ken Kelly, Georges Méliès, John C. Berkey, and Jeffrey Catherine Jones
- Parrish – lush, dreamy visions from the early 20th century by illustrator Maxfield Parrish
- Photography – powerful documentary images by Robert Capa, Gordon Parks, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Dorothea Lange, and others
- Rockwell – a selection of the Museum’s renowned holdings of works by premier American illustrator Norman Rockwell
- Wyeth – book illustrations from the 1910s through the 1940s by the incomparable N.C. Wyeth
- Western Stories – myths of the American West, including wagon trains, shoot-outs, frontier towns, and more
Teasing “The People’s Art”
One of the clearest messages in this early reveal is the museum’s commitment to forms often underrepresented in traditional institutions, like comics, illustration, manga, and film artifacts.
While the focus on more modern artforms is thrilling, the real excitement won’t begin until the doors of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art finally open this autumn.
