“Narrative art tells the story of a society—what the common beliefs are that hold it together.”

—George Lucas, Co-founder

Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato dedicado al Dr. Eloesser (Self-Portrait Dedicated to Dr. Eloesser), 1940, oil on board.

Kadir Nelson, Art Connoisseurs, cover for The New Yorker, December 2, 2019, oil on panel.

Welcome to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, a museum devoted to the art of visual storytelling.

For thousands of years, people have made marks to describe their lives. Charcoal on cave walls. Paint on canvas. Light captured on film. Artists have depicted our joys, fears, myths, and dreams. They have told our stories.

From these timeless impulses and the deeply human need to put our world into pictures, artists have brought us epics and fables, science-fiction sagas, comic strips, and bedtime stories. Murals, sculpture, photography, posters, illustrations, magic-lantern slides, animation cels—all are forms of narrative art.

Narrative art is central to how we build memory and meaning, construct our myths, religions, and histories. It spans eras, cultures, genres, and art forms. It transcends traditions and time. It includes famous artists and those whose names history did not record.

Discover the stories that connect us.

Archibald Motley, Jr., Baseball in the School Yard, 1934, oil on canvas laid to panel.

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Kadir Nelson, Black Gothic, cover of Ebony, 2016, oil on linen.

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Mort Künstler, The Couple That Refused to Die, cover for For Men Only, vol. 14, no. 1, 1967, gouache and tempera on board.

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Doug Chiang, Podrace Crash, production art, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, 1995–99, acrylic on board.

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Jacob Lawrence, To Preserve Their Freedom, from the series The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture, 1988, silkscreen on rag paper.

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Frederick Sands Brunner, “Want Some?,” illustration for Joseph C. Hoover and Sons Calendar Company, 1930, oil on canvas.

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Ralph Nelson, Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, 1939, oil on canvas.

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Richard Sargent, Singing Praise, cover for The Saturday Evening Post, 1959, tempera on board.

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Charles Dana Gibson, “Brown Wishes His Country Wasn't Neutral,” illustration for Life, 1914, ink on board.

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Don Maitz, Unsafe Footing, cover for Creepy, no. 94, 1978, mixed media on panel.

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Leo Politi, illustration for Three Stalks of Corn, 1978, mixed media on board.

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Rafael Navarro, cover for Sonambulo: Mexican Stand-Off, no. 3, 2006, acrylic on canvas.

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Nacho García Benavente, Son Goku, undated, ink, gouache, and watercolor on board.

Philippe Druillet, art for Salammbô: Carthage, 1982, ink, graphite, and marker on board.

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A Collection Made of Stories

Guided by founders George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the Lucas Museum reflects their shared vision of an institution dedicated to the power of storytelling through images.

George Lucas’s lifelong passion for collecting began when he bought his first artwork in college: an illustration of Alley Oop, the time-traveling caveman. Together, Lucas and Hobson have since built and supported a collection that ranges from illustrators such as Norman Rockwell, Jessie Willcox Smith, Maxfield Parrish, and N. C. Wyeth to comic artists like Winsor McCay, Frank Frazetta, George Herriman, Jack Kirby, and Robert Crumb. The collection also embraces modern and contemporary artists, including Frida Kahlo, Jacob Lawrence, Charles White, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Robert Colescott, and muralists such as Judith F. Baca and Diego Rivera.

In addition to its art collection, the museum houses extensive film archives, including the complete Lucas Archives (1971–2012)—the original Lucasfilm materials retained by George Lucas after the company’s sale—reflecting its dedication to storytelling in every medium.
Background Image

Judith F. Baca, final coloration for 1950: The Development of Suburbia, for The Great Wall of Los Angeles, 1983, pencil and pastel on blueprint. Courtesy of the SPARC Archives (SPARCinLA.org).