Co-founded by film-maker George Lucas (Star Wars, Indiana Jones…) and his wife Mellody Hobson, co-CEO and President of Ariel Investments, the Lucas Museum of 300,000 sq.ft will present their collection, assembled over several decades. It encompasses popular American art, illustrative, comic, cinematic and animation art, and African American works. “The stories that art tells are often key to understanding a society and its aspirations, whether our own or others,” says George Lucas. “We hope the Museum will help audiences better understand the world and build toward a more just and empathetic society.” Chief Curator Pilar Tompkins Rivas adds a more personal note: “Through narrative art, people from every age and background can find connections between their lives and those of others across eras, cultures, and regions of the globe.” Dating back to cave drawings, hieroglyphics and Roman mosaics, narrative art encompasses paintings, murals, sculptures, comics, photography, magazine and book illustrations, film and digital media. The collection contains works by illustrators Norman Rockwell, Jessie Willcox Smith, Maxfield Parrish; comic artists Winsor McCay, George Herriman, Jack Kirby; muralists Judith F. Baca, Diego Rivera; artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Frida Kahlo, Jacob Lawrence, and many more. The Museum’s acquisition of the Separate Cinema Archive added 37,000 items – posters, lobby cards, film stills, scripts – tracing African American cinema from 1904 onwards, with stars such as Paul Robeson, Duke Ellington, Sidney Poitier, and Josephine Baker. The Museum is designed by renowned architect Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, one of China’s most prominent design firms, with Michael Siegel of Stantec as executive architect. Clad in over 1,500 panels of fibreglass-reinforced polymer, this rolling, 5-storey building is set in an 11-acre site, formerly a parking lot. Its extensive new greenery, signed Studio-MLA, features a hanging garden, an amphitheatre, a waterfall fountain, and 200 new trees. Rejecting the right angle, this impressive, flowing museum will host about 100,000 sq.ft of exhibition space, two cinema theatres, a library, classrooms, a café, restaurant, special events areas, and an outdoor terrace. A long-time fan of Ma Yansong, George Lucas expects the museum to draw visitors for its architecture and park as well as its collection. He has also pursued goals for local hiring and collaborations with firms owned by women, minorities or veterans. By September 2022, the project had employed over 4,200 workers, 60%+ resident in Los Angeles County. A socially responsible approach, echoed by Mellody Hobson: “Our goal is to create an inclusive and accessible museum bringing people together from every walk of life.”