The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is an institution dedicated to the art of visual storytelling. Founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the museum celebrates the ways art awakens our emotions and shapes our collective imagination. It is a place where stories are not only shared but elevated. An uncanny self-portrait by Frida Kahlo; Norman Rockwell’s deceptively idyllic paintings of American life; Charles White’s powerful images of African American families. All works that encourage conversation, prompt introspection, or ignite debate. In these ways, narrative art reaches across time, cultures, geographies, and identities. It centers the artist as a storyteller.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is an institution dedicated to the art of visual storytelling. Founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the museum celebrates the ways art awakens our emotions and shapes our collective imagination. It is a place where stories are not only shared but elevated. An uncanny self-portrait by Frida Kahlo; Norman Rockwell’s deceptively idyllic paintings of American life; Charles White’s powerful images of African American families. All works that encourage conversation, prompt introspection, or ignite debate. In these ways, narrative art reaches across time, cultures, geographies, and identities. It centers the artist as a storyteller.
Ralph McQuarrie, Artoo and Threepio Leave the Pod in the Desert, production art for Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, 1975, gouache on board.
George Lucas
Founder, Lucasfilm
Co-chair of the Board
Mellody Hobson
Co-CEO and President, Ariel Investments
Co-chair of the Board
With decades of collecting between them, the pair have assembled a collection that ranges from iconic American painting to popular illustrative, comic, and cinematic art. Lucas, creator of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and founder of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, has been collecting art since college, a time when he could only afford $30 comic art originals because “real art” was out of reach. For over 50 years, that collection has grown to more than 40,000 pieces—each work held not as an investment but because of its meaning to him. "I could never [sell art]," Lucas says. "That’s just not what I think art is. I think it's more about an emotional connection with the work, not how much it cost." In addition to managing Ariel Investments, Hobson is the former chairman of Starbucks Corporation and serves as a director of JPMorgan Chase. In 2010, Hobson and Lucas signed the Giving Pledge, a public promise by the world's wealthiest philanthropists to give the majority of their wealth to charitable causes. The pair are committed to improving education, particularly through the arts. “We've always said that we're holding society's money that we fully intend to give back,” Hobson says. “This is how we're doing it."
In addition to managing Ariel Investments, Hobson is the former chair of Starbucks Corporation and serves as a director of JPMorgan Chase. In 2010, Hobson and Lucas signed the Giving Pledge, a public promise by the world's wealthiest philanthropists to give the majority of their wealth to charitable causes. The pair are committed to improving education, particularly through the arts. "We've always said we're holding society's money which we fully intend to give back," Hobson says. "This is how we're doing it."
George Lucas
Founder, Lucasfilm
Co-chair of the Board
Mellody Hobson
Co-CEO and President, Ariel Investments
Co-chair of the Board
Andrea Wishom
President, Skywalker Holdings, LLC
Vice-chair of the Board
Henry Bienen
President Emeritus, Northwestern University
Cesar Conde
Chairman, NBCUniversal News Group
Guillermo del Toro
Filmmaker
Arne Duncan
Former U.S. Secretary of Education
Jim Gianopulos
CEO, Lucas Museum of Narrative Art
Michael Govan
CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director,
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
John McCarter, Jr.
President Emeritus, The Field Museum of Natural History
Steven Spielberg
Filmmaker
Matthew Yale
Founder & CEO, Grove Partners
Ernie Barnes, The Drum Major, 2003, © Ernie Barnes Family Trust, photographed by Jeff McLane. Courtesy of UTA Artist Space and the Estate of Ernie Barnes
Jim Gianopulos
CEO
James N. (Jim) Gianopulos has been a leading figure in the entertainment industry for more than 40 years. He currently serves as CEO of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and as special advisor to the museum’s founders, George Lucas and Mellody Hobson. Until 2021, he was chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, where he oversaw major film productions like Mission Impossible: Fallout, A Quiet Place, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Top Gun: Maverick. Under his leadership, Paramount Television Studios also expanded with series such as The Offer and Fatal Attraction.
Before Paramount, Gianopulos was chairman and CEO of Twentieth Century Fox from 2000 to 2016, where he led the studio to record-breaking profits. Among the many successes during Gianopulos’s stewardship were two of the highest grossing films of all time, Titanic and Avatar, as well as the Planet of the Apes, X Men, and Star Wars franchises, in addition to Deadpool, The Martian, and many other critical and commercial successes. He also played a key role in advancing media technologies, including the launches of iTunes and Hulu.
Gianopulos is actively involved in civic and philanthropic endeavors, serving on the boards of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the Motion Picture & Television Fund, the X Prize Foundation, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. His contributions to the industry have earned him numerous accolades.