George Lucas, the Star Wars film-maker and artwork collector who together with his spouse Mellody Hobson, the president and co-chief govt of Ariel Investments, is constructing the $1bn Lucas Museum of Narrative Artwork in Los Angeles, made his first-ever look at Comedian-Con on 27 July to share new particulars in regards to the establishment forward of its opening subsequent 12 months.
“I’ve been doing this for 50 years now, after which it occurred to me that, what am I going to do with all of it?” Lucas stated. “I refuse to promote it. I’m not one of many typical excessive artwork collectors who buys and then you definately comes again 5 years later and say, ‘What occurred to that portray you purchased, that was so lovely?’ ‘Effectively, I offered it for $10m, I made some huge cash on it.’ I may by no means try this. It’s not what I believe artwork is.”
The panel was moderated by actor and rapper Queen Latifah and featured fellow film-maker Guillermo del Toro (who additionally serves on the museum’s board) and the manufacturing designer Doug Chiang. It started with a six-minute video, narrated by Star Wars actor Samuel L. Jackson, providing new views and renderings of the museum’s distinctly futuristic, 300,000 sq. ft constructing in Exposition Park, designed by Ma Yansong of the agency Mad Architects.
Inside pictures present a few of its greater than 30 galleries, together with immersive areas that includes reproductions of cave work and an entrance flanked by two lamassu sculptures (historic Mesopotamian statues of winged lions with human heads) from round 710 BC. The museum may also function artwork and objects associated to the Star Wars franchise, together with idea artwork and fashions of futuristic vessels.
The video additionally supplied a rapid-fire take a look at among the round 40,000 objects stated to be in Lucas and Hobson’s assortment, from unique Iron Man and Black Panther comedian e book artwork for to drawings by R. Crumb and Jack Kirby, political cartoons and animation cells. It additionally confirmed off among the highlights of the museum’s high quality artwork assortment, together with works by Frida Kahlo, Robert Colescott and Norman Rockwell.
From left to proper, Guillermo del Toro, George Lucas, Queen Latifah and Doug Chiang on the Lucas Museum of Narrative Artwork panel at Comedian-Con Worldwide 2025 at San Diego Conference Middle on 27 July 2025 Photograph by Eric Charbonneau / Lucas Museum of Narrative Artwork by way of Getty Photos
“It’s a temple to the individuals’s artwork,” Lucas stated of the museum. He described his curiosity in artwork as being “extra a couple of connection and emotional reference to the work, not how a lot it value or what superstar did it. I don’t suppose it’s something anybody will inform you. When you have [an] emotional connection, it’s artwork. When you don’t, simply transfer onto the following portray.”
Each Del Toro and Chiang praised Lucas and Hobson for putting comics and illustration on equal footing with high quality artwork, eliciting frequent applause from the 6,000-strong crowd contained in the San Diego Conference Middle.
“Comedian artwork and journal illustration have been form of appeared down upon,” stated Chiang, who serves because the senior vice chairman an govt design director at Lucasfilm, the manufacturing firm Lucas based in 1971. “What I like about what George and Mellody are doing with this museum is they’re acknowledging and giving respect to artists who actually haven’t been highlighted earlier than.”
The panel comes at a second when Lucas has taken extra direct management of operations at his namesake establishment. Sandra Jackson-Dumont, the museum’s director and chief govt since 2020, left in March, with Lucas changing into solely “liable for content material course”. In Might, the museum laid off 14% of its workers, together with 15 full-time roles and 7 part-time positions; lots of the cuts got here from the museum’s schooling and public programming departments.
