LOS ANGELES — The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens to the public today, Tuesday 22 September 2026, at One Lucas Plaza in Exposition Park — a first-of-its-kind institution dedicated to storytelling through images. Founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the museum traces visual narrative from prehistoric cave painting echoes to illustration, comics, cinema and murals, and it arrives on a day when the regular Tuesday-closed schedule is overridden for the grand opening.
Official museum materials and Discover Los Angeles place the campus at 3800 S Vermont Avenue (ZIP 90037). The soaring building measures about 300,000 square feet, designed by Ma Yansong of MAD with Stantec, and houses more than 100,000 square feet of gallery space across 30-plus galleries. Around it, a new 13-acre Park and Gardens by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA replace a former asphalt lot with trees, meadows, sculpture walks and public green space for South Los Angeles.
What is on view on opening day
Inaugural exhibitions unfold more than 1,300 works across the museum's collection. Signature names highlighted in the press kit include Artemisia Gentileschi, Norman Rockwell, Frida Kahlo, Robert Colescott, Frank Frazetta and Robert Crumb, alongside cinema materials from the complete Lucas Archives (1971–2012). Thematic rooms move from Heroes Myths The Sacred on the lower floors into illustration, comics, manga, murals and cinema upstairs — including a Star Wars in Motion gallery drawn from the archives.
Two dedicated theatres — the Robert Flaherty Theater and the Slavko Vorkapich Theater — run continuous, drop-in film programmes. The free Research Library opens with general collections, rare books, comics and holdings linked to Skywalker Ranch research, Steve Martin's art-book gift and Joseph Campbell's personal library. Skywalker Grill, designed by Rockwell Group and operated by Rhubarb Hospitality Collection, sits atop the building for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch and remains open beyond gallery hours.
Tickets, hours and the Tuesday exception
Timed-entry tickets are required for everyone, including members and children. Adult admission is $25; seniors 65 and over pay $21; children 17 and under are free, as are members, active-duty military and eligible LM37 passholders for the 90037 neighbourhood. Park and Gardens, the store, Skywalker Grill and the café do not require a gallery ticket, though campus access can pause when capacity is tight.
Regular museum hours list Tuesday as closed — Monday and Wednesday–Thursday 10:00–17:00, Friday 10:00–21:00, Saturday 09:00–21:00, Sunday 09:00–17:00 — but opening day on Tuesday 22 September runs 10:00–17:00 per Discover Los Angeles and museum communications. Last entry is 45 minutes before closing. Tickets for the opening season through February 2027 have been on sale via lucasmuseum.org/plan-your-visit.
Opening-night gala and what visitors should know
On 19 September the museum marked the building with an Opening Night celebration co-chaired by Julie Bell, Tom Cruise, Greta Gerwig, Jensen Huang, JR, Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro and Pharrell Williams. Member previews ran earlier in September, with a Neighbourhood Preview Day on 13 September for the 90037 community.
Architecture, park and why Exposition Park matters
Ma Yansong has described the Lucas Museum as emotional architecture — fluid, without a single straight line, meant to feel like a cloud or a dream lifted into Exposition Park's tree canopy. More than 1,200 uniquely shaped fibreglass-reinforced polymer panels clad the exterior. The building touches the ground lightly at a few points so a sheltered plaza forms beneath a 185-foot central arch; an elliptical oculus four storeys up frames sky from the public square. Lower floors hold lobbies, two theatres, a horseshoe-shaped library and learning wing with floor-to-ceiling park views, about ten studios and classrooms, a shop, a café and roughly 10,000 square feet of gallery.
Studio-MLA's landscape answers with more than 300 new trees, indigenous and drought-tolerant plantings, a hanging garden, amphitheatre, meadow and waterfall fountain. Ten outdoor sculptures — from Fernando Botero's Maternity to bronzes tied to cinematic mythology — sit on free walkways that extend the galleries outdoors. CEO Tracey Bates, quoted in the museum's opening release, said every gallery and programme was built with visitors in mind as the public finally walks through the doors. That combination of architecture, free park access and ticketed galleries is the practical Los Angeles story behind today's Lucas Museum of Narrative Art debut.
Ma Yansong's cloud-like FRP-clad form lifts over a central plaza with a 185-foot arch and an elliptical oculus — architecture framed by the museum as emotional space rather than a box of white walls. For searchers typing Lucas Museum of Narrative Art today, the practical answer is simple: Exposition Park is open, timed tickets are mandatory, kids 17 and under enter free, and the collection puts comics and cinema on equal footing with painting. Primary sources for this report are the museum's 22 September opening press release, Plan Your Visit pages and Discover Los Angeles' grand-opening listing.