George Lucas presents a galaxy of art that goes far, far past 'Star Wars' in new Los Angeles museum

LOS ANGELES — The new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will serve “Star Wars” fans what they crave, but the saga George Lucas spawned represents just one small corner of the galaxy of creative work within the walls of the Los Angeles institution he calls a "temple to the people’s art.”

The purpose of the palace that has become his life's work since he sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 is to take the work of populist painters, commercial illustrators, comic artists and paperback cover-creators and treat it with a reverence normally reserved for Rembrandts.

“That’s really what the mission is, that there’s these incredibly familiar pieces that have not had the opportunity to be platformed in this manner, to be placed like this, to be curated in this way, for people to really see the genius behind it,” museum CEO Tracey Bates said in an interview with The Associated Press inside the museum.

The 82-year-old Lucas made an unannounced appearance at a media preview day at the museum on Wednesday with his wife, businesswoman Mellody Hobson, the museum's co-founder. He said he couldn't believe the place now exists after being conceived 17 years ago and having been “kicked out of” proposed locations in cities including San Francisco and Chicago, places where previous sites fell through.

"Part of the problem is that I’m a contrarian. I don’t like to do things people think can be done," he said, wearing a T-shirt that read “Dedicated to the people's art.”

“I’m used to doing the impossible," he said. "This one almost broke me.”

Visitors to the new museum will be greeted by a bright yellow Naboo N-1 Starfighter from 1999's “The Phantom Menace” that hangs in the lobby of the public research library. The opening exhibit, “Star Wars in Motion,” shows production versions of Luke Skywalker's landspeeder from the original film and speeder bikes from 1983's “Return of the Jedi.”

But Bates points out that “'Star Wars' only occupies 7% of the museum, actually.” And chief among the tasks of the CEO and her staff in the final days before opening is spreading the word about all it has to offer.

Nearly everything in the vast museum's 100,000 square feet of galleries comes from the personal collection of Lucas or Hobson, a major collector of African-American art.

The filmmaker began collecting original comic art from newspaper strips like “Alley Oop” when he was in college and it could be had for pocket change. When blockbuster money started rolling in, he started buying paintings from commercial artists, including Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish, that were deemed the height of uncool at the time. He joked at a San Diego Comic-Con panel last year that he needed a museum just to have somewhere to put it all.

Bates, who joined the project in 2020, spoke to the while sitting in the gallery devoted to Rockwell, the 20th century painter and illustrator who embodies the spirit of the museum more than Luke Skywalker or C-3PO.

“He’s one of the greatest storytellers of our lifetime, really,” she said.