George Lucas Chooses LA for $1 Billion Museum of Narrative Art​

LOS ANGELES, CA -- Filmmaker George Lucas chose to open his Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, a philanthropic gift from Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson valued at more than $1 billion.

The nonprofit museum's board of directors selected Exposition Park over a competing bid from San Francisco. The museum aims to break up the 'artificial' barriers that separate the arts, allowing visitors free or low-cost experiences with "films and exhibitions dedicated to the power of visual storytelling and the evolution of art and moving images."

"We have been humbled by the overwhelmingly positive support we received from both San Francisco and Los Angeles during our selection process," according to a statement from the board. "Settling on a location proved to be an extremely difficult decision precisely because of the desirability of both sites and cities."

Board members thanked officials from both cities, but added that the South Los Angeles Promise Zone in which Exposition park sits "best positions the museum to have the greatest impact on the broader community, fulfilling our goal of inspiring, engaging and educating a broad and diverse visitorship.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti had been actively courting the museum's board for months.

"(Los Angeles) is the natural place. This is the creative capital of the world," Garcetti said last week. "This is where you can contact more people from around the world."

Exposition Park is a magnet for the region and accessible from all parts of the city. As a museum uniquely focused on narrative art, we look forward to becoming part of a dynamic museum community, surrounded by more than 100 elementary and high schools, one of the country's leading universities as well as three other world-class museums."

The museum will house works by painters such as Edgar Degas, Winslow Homer and Pierre-Auguste Renior; illustrations, comic art and photography by artists such as Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish and N.C. Wyeth; as well as storyboards, props and other items from popular films, all in an effort to create a "barrier-free museum" where "artificial divisions between `high' art and `popular' art are absent," according to the museum's website.

Lucas is best known for creating the "Star Wars" film franchise, producing the "Indiana Jones" franchise and founding Industrial Light & Magic, a visual effects company.

The filmmaker has connections to both Los Angeles and San Francisco. He has been a longtime resident of the Bay Area, where Industrial Light & Magic is located, and attended film school at USC, which is adjacent to Exposition Park. In 2015, he donated $10 million to his alma mater.

City News Service and Patch staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report. Image courtesy of the Lucas' Museum of Narrative Art