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| Installation view with Artemisia Gentileschi's Triumph of Galatea and the shade of the Apollo Belvedere |
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is critic-proof. Weekend reservations are sold out through the end of the year, and the place is packed at popular times, as few Los Angeles museums are. Though critics carp, influencers love the place. I can't ever recall seeing so many video reviews for a local cultural institution, and close to 99 percent are enthusiastically positive. What the public is responding to is the Lucas' walk-through archive of comic strips and comic books; magazine and children's book illustration; movie concept art and props; street art.
A very small part of that formula is a dash of so-called high art. Much of this is shown in the first-floor gallery titled "The History of Narrative Art: Heroes • Myths • The Sacred." This scandalously juxtaposes Lucas-owned originals with reproductions of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling and paintings by Van Eyck, Holbein, Caravaggio, and Vermeer. That's a tough act for any 21st century billionaire's collection to follow. Most of the fakes are backlighted transparencies or video screens, creating an ambiance something like a bank of slot machines. It's a challenge to see the original works, much less to understand what you're seeing.
So: Are the Lucas' pre-1900 paintings and sculptures worth anyone's time?
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| Egyptian Relief depicting the afterlife of an elite official, about 2200–2000 BCE |
The earliest object in the Lucas' inaugural installation is a polychrome limestone relief from ancient Egypt, perhaps the First Intermediate Period. There's not much Egyptian material in Los Angeles, and most of it is considerably later.
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| Empress Livia Drusilla as a priestess (the "Stowe Livia"), 1st century CE |
This photo gives you some idea of what the original works have to compete with. Of the several authentic antiquities, the one that best holds its own is an over-life-size Roman statue of Empress Livia as a priestess (a.k.a. the "Stowe Livia"). Sotheby's
auctioned it for £615,000 in 2019. Its provenance can be traced to the Palazzo Picchini, Rome, where it was sketched by Charles Le Brun. It then landed in a succession of English country homes starting with Stowe House. That was the onetime home of the Stowe Vase, now in LACMA's Geffen installation.
Livia has had a fair amount of restoration. Still, it's a well-documented Roman statue, and there aren't many of those still in play. Maybe it's narrative art because of the subject (wife of Augustus and I, Claudius villain).
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| Attributed to Jörg Lederer, Saint Sebastian, about 1515–1520 |
The late middle ages are represented by an impressive German Saint Sebastian that was formerly in the collection of Hester Diamond. It
went for $528,200 in a 2021 auction. The buyer was dealer Sam Fogg, who sold it to the Lucas.
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| Andrea Solario, Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist, 1520-24. Christie's photo, 2016 |
Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist was a popular subject that Andrea Solario and his studio did a number of times, in different formats. The Lucas painting seems to be
the one that Christie's auctioned, as studio of Andrea Solario, in 2016. It went for $199,500. The lot copy said it was "sheltered in a private collection and unseen by scholars for more than half a century." It is identified as a variant of Solario's autograph version at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Here I'm reproducing Christie's photo, as it's now almost impossible to photograph without glare. As seen at the Lucas, however, the colors are brighter, indicative of a good cleaning. The label gives it to Solario without qualification. Have scholars indeed upgraded it from a studio work? Which scholars? This would be worth remarking in a label, but the Lucas
sticks to name, media, and date.
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Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Judgment of Solomon, 1526
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The Judgment of Solomon is one of two versions by Lucas Cranach the Elder,
the other in Berlin. The Berlin picture is later (1537) and much bigger, with studio participation. The Lucas version was previously on loan to Princeton University Art Gallery.
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| Daniele Crespi, Cain and Abel, 1618–30 |
One of the most innovative artists in Milan, Daniele Crespi (1598–1630) died of the plague at age 32. At least two versions of his
Cain and Abel are known, one auctioned at Sotheby's in 2006 and another sold in Vienna in 2018. The Lucas picture appears to be the latter. It's a big, raw, contrasty painting, and the gallery lighting doesn't do it any favors. LACMA has
an excellent Christ Mocked by the artist, though it's not on view.
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| Artemisia Gentileschi and associate, The Triumph of Galatea, mid 17th century |
The large (77-1/2 by 100-1/8 in.)
Artemisia Gentileschi Triumph of Galatea sold for $2.13 million at Christie's in 2020. The auction house and now the Lucas assign it to Gentileschi "and associate." As recently as 2007 the whole picture was attributed to Bernardino Cavallino. A
Galatea was however documented in letters between Gentileschi and her patron, the Sicilian nobleman Don Antonio Ruffo, better known as the owner of Rembrandt's
Aristotle with a Bust of Homer. Gentileschi surely painted the nude Galatea and her shell; possibly the two most prominent tritons. The background figures are likely by another artist, possibly Onofrio Palumbo.
This isn't a scene of female vengeance, but that was just part of Artemisia's output. It was to Ruffo that the artist famously boasted: "My illustrious lordship, I will show what a woman can do."
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| Detail of Triumph of Galatea. Scholars divide on whether the coral-wreathed triton is by Artemisia Gentileschi or an assistant |
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| David Teniers the Younger, The Fishmonger, 1647 |
Agnew Gallery, London, described
David Teniers the Younger's The Fishmonger as "undoubtedly the greatest genre painting by the artist to appear on the art market in recent times." It combines a genre scene with a landscape, a still life, and a self-portrait: The customer in red resembles known likenesses of Teniers. Despite the Flemish costumes, the distant cityscape is Rome, which Teniers must have copied from prints.
Though Teniers' reputation has faded, he was one of the most successful artists of his time, hailed as heir to Bruegel's peasant scenes. Teniers in turn was a point of departure for Watteau. The Fishmonger was the lead lot in the 1869 auction of the Delessert collection in Paris, where it sold for more than a Raphael Virgin and Child that is now in the Musée Condé.
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| Detail of Teniers' The Fishmonger |
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| Luca Giordano, Study for Allegory of the Peace Between Fiesole and Florence, about 1682 |
This oil sketch is another upgrade.
Sotheby's sold it as a studio work in 2018 (for £81,250). The Lucas now assigns it to Giordano. It's documented that the artist created the study—presumably this one—in just four hours.
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| Émile-Jean-Horace Vernet, The Siege of Saragossa, 1819 |
Horace Vernet's
The Siege of Saragossa was part of the New York Public Library's deaccessioning purge in 2008.
Sotheby's sold it for $87,000 seven years later.
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| Copy of Gericault's Raft of the Medusa, 19th century |
In 2023 an
Art in America video claimed that
conservator Joanna Neville was restoring an oil study for Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, owned by the Lucas. Said to be by Géricault himself, it's a small (25 by 32 in.) rectangular detail of the painting's central section. I can't say I was surprised to learn that the Lucas is now identifying it as a 19th-century copy by an unknown artist.
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| Gu Jianlong, Shoulao on a White Deer, 17th century |
Aside from the 4th-floor gallery devoted to manga, there isn't much Asian art at the Lucas. In the first-floor installation is a Chinese ink painting signed by Gu Jianlong (1606–after 1687). Called
Shoulao on a White Deer, it was
auctioned by Christie's in 2021 for $50,000.
Gu was court painter for the first Qing emperor, Shunzhi. His use of Western-style shading was notable for the time. There are examples of his work at the
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; the
Art Institute of Chicago; and the
Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City.
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| Backlighted transparency of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Joan of Arc (1864) |
Dante Gabriel Rossetti did two paintings and two watercolors of Joan of Arc. The Lucas owns one of the watercolors, which fetched £218,500 at Christie's in 2014. Instead of showing it, they're displaying a larger-than-life backlighted reproduction. Go figure.
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| Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Collector of Pictures at the Time of Augustus, 1868 |
It is perhaps the British school that best bridges high art and narrative art. The Pre-Raphaelites were a different sort of avant garde, creating meticulous illustrations of literary subjects. They were contemporary with other specialized schools of illustration-like painting that were taken seriously at the time. The Lucas is showing three paintings of imagined Roman antiquity by Lawrence Alma-Tadema and wife Laura Theresa Epps. At one point was claimed that all the Monets in the world could have been purchased for the price of one Alma-Tadema.
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| John Simmons, There Sleeps Titania, 1872 |
Are George and Mellody still buying older art? I know of one auction piece that was added in the past year. It's a Victorian fairy painting by John Simmons. Heritage Auctions sold Simmons' There Sleeps Titania for $47,500 in November 2025. Along with the Alma-Tademas, it's shown on the 4th floor, emphasizing its affinity to 20th-century illustration.
Fairy painting was a twee genre of 19th-century Britain, presented as illustrations of Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream. Simmons was by no means the most interesting of the fairy painters, but he was one of the few to emphasize erotic nudity: a Victorian Vargas.
George Lucas has tried to make a case for the continuity of narrative and regular art. My sense is that the older pieces (and the reproductions) are intended to show that Norman Rockwell and Star Wars aren't so different from the great art of the past.
That's one take, but I'm more impressed by the differences between high and low art as shown at the Lucas. Most of the art on the museum's 4th and 5th floors is playing a new game with new rules, one made possible by burgeoning technologies of mechanical and digital reproduction. It doesn't need any art-historical justification, and it demands to be appreciated on its own terms.
Comments
Separately, I am happy when old-world architectural spaces are cinematized to beautiful effect.
At the Met's Raphael show this year, they created a lovely rendition of the Stanzas at the Vatican:
"a digital video showing Raphael’s monumental fresco cycles in four rooms of the Vatican Palace. The display provides a sense of scale and context for the many related drawings in this exhibition. Between 1508 and 1524, the frescoes were painted by Raphael and his workshop in the nearly square rooms now known as the Stanza della Segnatura, Stanza di Eliodoro, and Stanza dell’Incendio, and in the gargantuan oblong Sala di Costantino (completed by his assistants after his death in 1520)."
> so many video reviews
> for a local cultural
> institution
The Lucas definitely has made more of an online splash than the Geffen Galleries several months ago did.
I also recall more snipes or digs aimed at LACMA, if only because its food services weren't or aren't better. The Erehwon has been criticized for being too small and pricey.
And focusing on not artworks on display but the architecture, the Lucas comes out ahead. Even the gardens of the Lucas seem friendlier than the huge concrete slab that sits all around the Geffen.
There again, LACMA's outdoor sculptures should be on full display under the Geffen instead of in storage, if only to break up the monotony of gray concrete surfaces.
I've read Lucas visitors welcoming a menu in its cafe that includes $2 grilled cheese sandwiches. lol. Melonie Hobson, aware of people on a modest budget, insisted on an item like that.
And unlike the Lucas, the Geffen upon its grand opening didn't have its theater and restaurant ready either.
> LACMA has an excellent
> Christ Mocked by the artist,
> though it's not on view.
Not on view? Of course not. It's also a gift of the Ahmanson Foundation.
Because LACMA is managed in such a flaky manner, with its director and staffers being the rubes that G. Garcin is always referring to, no wonder the - wait for it - Museum of Fine Arts Houston is now not only physically larger than LACMA, but it's also more professionally packaged---ie, design of galleries, look of entry areas, wall labels, etc.
Those differences will impress more people dropping by MFAH than people dropping by LACMA (ie, the Geffen parking garage).
And since Govan and his people have alienated the Ahmanson Foundation, I wonder if they, the foundation, will consider donating artworks for display in the Lucas's introductory 1st floor gallery?
When I describe the Geffen Galleries as being installed in a surprisingly clunky way, I'm referring to areas like the one in that photo. The large bust (Roman-Greek) to the right is balanced by a small painting (South American Colonial art) and a cheesy looking small sculpture (again, South American Colonial art) sitting on a Ikea table to the left.
Never mind the gray concrete walls that might be better tinted. Or that LACMA's collection isn't so overwhelmingly huge and so consistently excellent (think: What Cairo's new Grand Egyptian Museum is to ancient Egyptian artifacts) that staffers were pretty much forced to display everything but the kitchen sink.
But the live performers on skateboards and bicycles do add such a great touch. LACMA should next bring in live animals so the Geffen evokes the LA County Fair
Now Govan and his staffers are going to have to spend (waste?) time on the new museum in Vegas.
... Whose terms would those be? Because George and Mellody stole the "terms" for the gallery wth the reproductions of cave paintings and the Sistine Chapel from Leo Braudy, specifically the article "The Lucas Museum and the Question of Narrative Art." It appeared in the LA Review of Books (September 2025). The subtitle of the article is "Leo Braudy proposes a historical and aesthetic rationale for George Lucas's Museum of Narrative Art."
The cave paintings, Renaissance paintings in enclosed/religious spaces, and Trajan's column are among the works Braudy claims constitute a prehistory of narrative/ritualistic art. The Lucas reproduces that prehistory without attributing it to Braudy.
If you are going to invoke art history (i.e., the prehistory that Braudy maps for narrative art), then you are in fact seeking "art historical justification." We can criticize the Lucas on art historical grounds because the Lucas has always already tried to justify itself on art historical grounds.
If you want to be appreciated on your own terms, don't start buying art at auction when it becomes clear you've spent your life collecting comic books and have nothing to put in a serious art museum/library.
If you want to be appreciated on your own terms, follow the example of Albert Barnes. Collect only those high art objects that serve to illustrate the formal relationships that you see in the world (e.g., in everyday objects like wrought iron). Then, you can truly say that you tried to democratize art.
Too bad Baudrillard is dead. He could have written a book about the Lucas Museum. It might have changed his mind on the status of the "fake" in American society. Could it be that the fourth or third order of simulation (the museum as theme park) is not some higher-order simulation (whatever comes after the postmodern), but just a rich man's vanity and folly. Perhaps, American culture is not beyond ideology at all.
--- J. Garcin
For one, the building…looks like a glowing piece of futuristic Hollywood kitsch. It’s spaceship-adjacent, fittingly enough given Lucas’s background as the creator of the Star Wars. And indeed, a lot about this museum is, I hate to say, obvious.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art was created to honor humanity’s stories and the artists who illustrate them, [Lucas] said in a statement. The artists in this collection didn’t just create images, they connected our modern imaginations with our ancient emotions—with common beliefs creating community.”
But that isn’t necessarily true. Even though Star Wars fans will likely come for any writer who criticizes this museum (“why can’t you just celebrate how great this museum is?” they’ll ask, wide-eyed), Lucas underestimates the intelligence of his audience, assuming that myth is the only thing that binds us. And he treats the idea of storytelling in a flat, opaque way.
The museum defines narrative art as work “created to tell stories through images.,,” To me, that label implies that art must tell a story, that it can’t be abstract or avant-garde... So don’t expect to find works by Barnett Newman or Jackson Pollock…. Lucas believes that when fine art shifted toward Abstract Expressionism, “it abandoned the public” because it “stopped telling human stories.” But abstract art is neither mechanical nor dehumanized. It’s okay to own art you can argue with, art you disagree with, art that challenges you. After all, art isn’t decoration. Unless, perhaps, you’re Lucas.
Abstract art still tells a human story. Look at Lee Krasner’s 1956 painting Prophecy, which all but predicted Pollock’s death…and captures…the emotional friction of a marriage falling apart. Or consider how Piet Mondrian’s 1942 painting Broadway Boogie Woogie tells the story of New York City’s vibrant jazz scene.
Mark Rothko’s color field paintings are deeply emotional landscapes that capture the pre-digital human experience, letting viewers be awash in color and allowing color to speak to them without words or traditional imagery. Abstract and non-figurative art was also used by dissident artists working under authoritarian regimes as a coded form of political rebellion.
Walking through the galleries can feel like browsing a billionaire’s impressive but wide-ranging fine art holdings—and they are impressive, particularly in their number.
But taken as a whole, there is no real thematic framework at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art beyond the words that label each gallery, which is strange, considering how many visitors will be film or sci-fi buffs who are likely expecting Lucas to tell a more cohesive story.
Decades of abstract art - much of it technically ambiguous in terms of an artist's skill and "in the eye of the beholder" in terms of aesthetic skill - have been the reverse of a alternative-universe situation where decades of pre-Raphelite-type works (or dogs playing poker) have been tolerated or even oohed and ahhed over by the gatekeepers of culture.
That lack of balance since at least the 1960s has become overdone, a case of overkill or too much "been there, done that."
As for a place like the Broad Museum, my biggest issue is it not having enough square footage or moving parts (eg, no sculpture garden) in order to require not just an hour or two to visit, but hours to spend going through it. MOCA across the street is even more underwhelming due to its lack of space.
When the Broad expands, I'm hoping the newer space will make works like this show up more frequently. Since the Lucas has a lot of bells and whistles, even the Broad with its free admission may need to step up to the plate.
https://www.thebroad.org/art/featured-artworks/jordan-wolfsons-female-figure