Posted in: Comics | Tagged: alison bechdel, frank frazetta, jack kirby, los angeles, Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, posy simmonds, robert crumb

Jack Kirby And Frank Frazetta Join Lucas Museum Of Narrative Art

Jack Kirby, Frank Frazetta, Posy Simmonds, Robert Crumb and Alison Bechdel's work to be displayed in the Lucas Museum Of Narrative Art

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles' Exposition Park, has set its opening date for September 2026, including work by Jack Kirby, Posy Simmonds, Frank Frazetta, N. C. Wyeth, Beatrix Potter, Norman Rockwell, Kadir Nelson, Jessie Willcox Smith, Judy Baca, Frida Kahlo, Maxfield Parrish, Winsor McCay, Alison Bechdel, Chris Ware, Robert Crumb, Ernie Barnes, Osamu Tezuka, Miguel Covarrubias, George Herriman, Ralph McQuarrie, Doug Chian, Kadir Nelson, Gordon Parks, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Judith F. Baca, JR, Diego Rivera, Jacob Lawrence, Charles White, Robert Colescott and Dorothea Lang, founded by George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson. And it is set to be the largest comic book gallery in the world, featuring 35 galleries and occupying 100,000 square feet, with a permanent collection of over 40,000 works. This collection includes the Lucas Archives, which showcases models, props, concept art, and costumes from George Lucas' own work. Pieces to be included are Frank Frazetta's cover for A Princess of Mars, Norman Rockwell's cover for The Saturday Evening Post, Age of Romance, an unpublished Beatrix Potter drawing Mouse with a spinning wheel, The Duel on the Beach, an NC Wyeth illustration for Ladies' Home Journal, Ernie Barnes' The Critics Corner, Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, Doug Chian's Attack Of The Clones production art, Ralph McQuarrie's Star Wars production art, Miguel Covarrubias' Hollywood's Malibu Beach, Kadir Nelson's Art Connoisseurs cover for The New Yorker, Frida Kahlo's Autorretrato dedicado al Dr Eloesser.

The building is designed by architect Ma Yansong of MAD with assistance from the US-based architecture firm, Stantec. It is situated in Los Angeles' Exposition Park on an 11-acre campus with green spaces designed by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA. The 300,000-square-foot structure will feature galleries, two theatres, a retail store, a library, a café, a restaurant, and event spaces.

The museum states, "Narrative art is created to represent stories through images. Much of the world's artistic expression has been motivated by storytelling, transmitting narratives rooted in religion, myth, history, literature, or events. Narrative art appears in many forms, from cave drawings and hieroglyphics to paintings, murals, illustration, comics, and sculpture. Narrative art has proliferated in photography, magazine and book illustration, film, and digital media, addressing wide audiences and reminding them of the myths and stories that influence everyday life. The Lucas Museum shows how narrative art influences societies—shaping beliefs, communicating values, inspiring imagination, and creating communities. We empower people to engage with artworks through the compelling stories they tell." The board of directors are:

• George Lucas, Founder, Lucasfilm
• Mellody Hobson, Co-CEO and President, Ariel Investments
• Henry Bienen, Interim President, 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
• Andrea Wishom, President, Skywalker Holdings, LLC
• Matthew Yale, Founder and CEO, Grove Partners

The curating staff are as follows:

• Pilar Tompkins Rivas
  Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Curatorial and Collections
  Pilar Tompkins Rivas joined the Lucas Museum as Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Curatorial and
  Collections in 2020. Previously, she served as Director and as Chief Curator of the Vincent Price Art
  Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College. At VPAM, Tompkins Rivas spearheaded partnerships
  between the museum and the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
  (LACMA); and the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. She also launched diversity
  pipeline programs, including a museumstudies certificate program. Prior to her tenure at VPAM, she
  served as Coordinator of Curatorial Initiatives at LACMA, co-directing the institution's UCLA-LACMA Art
  History Practicum Initiative and the Andrew W. Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellowship Program, in
  addition to co-curating exhibitions in partnership with the Getty Trust's scholarly initiative Pacific Standard
  Time: Art in L.A., 1945–1980 (2011–12). Tompkins Rivas has also served as Curator and Director of
  artist-in-residence programs at the nonprofit 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, California, Arts
  Project Coordinator at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, and Curator at the Claremont
  Museum of Art. She is completing a PhD in Cultural Studies and holds an MA in Cultural Studies from
  Claremont Graduate University, in addition to holding a BA in Latin American Studies and a BFA in Studio
  Art from the University of Texas at Austin.
• Dr. Ryan Linkof
  Senior Curator
  Dr. Ryan Linkof has been a curator at the Lucas Museum since 2018. Previously, he served as Associate
  Curator at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and Assistant Curator in the Photography
  Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). At LACMA, he organized numerous
  exhibition projects, including Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium (2016, with the Getty Center)
  and Under the Mexican Sky: Gabriel Figueroa – Art and Film (2013–14). He serves on the board and as
  part of the curatorial advisory committee of the nonprofit collective Dirty Looks, dedicated to queer
  filmmaking. He is the author of Public Images (Bloomsbury, 2018), and his research has appeared in
  multiple exhibition catalogues, edited volumes, and scholarly journals, including Media History,
  Photography and Culture, and Études photographiques. His writing has also appeared in several online
  and print journals, including the New York Times, East of Borneo, This Recording, and Document
  Journal. He holds a PhD from the University of Southern California, where he has also served as a
  visiting professor, and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley.
• Laela French
  Curator & Head of Lucas Archives
  Laela French is Curator & Head of Lucas Archives at the Lucas Museum and has overseen the Lucas
  Archives since May 2001. Over the past two decades, she has worked closely with Lucasfilm Ltd.
  production teams to collect and preserve the costumes, props, models, and artworks used in the making
  of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. She has also curated, produced, and managed over 20 Star
  Wars touring exhibitions that have been shown at over 100 museum venues worldwide and visited by
  more than 14 million exhibition-goers. Previously, French was Collections Manager for Loans and
  Exhibitions at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles and Chief Registrar for the Long
  Beach Museum of Art in Long Beach, California, after several years of working as a regional archivist in
  Los

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