Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 8/30/2026 – Some images do more than accompany a story; they stay with us, shaping what we imagine is possible long after the page has turned or the theater lights have come back on. A Norman Rockwell painting can capture an entire human story in a single moment. Frank Frazetta’s fantasy art can make an impossible world feel alive. The ignition of a lightsaber can awaken a lifelong sense of wonder. A new collaboration between the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and TASCHEN explores why images like these remain embedded in our collective imagination, tracing how visual storytelling has connected people across centuries, cultures, and artistic mediums.
Created for the museum’s inaugural exhibition and its opening on September 22, 2026, the publication brings together painting, illustration, photography, comics, children’s books, and cinema, refusing to treat fine art and popular culture as separate worlds. Instead, it places them within the same continuing tradition of telling stories through images. The collection will be released in three formats: a two-volume Classic edition produced with TASCHEN’s signature attention to image quality, scale, paper and printing; a more compact 45 edition; and a miniature Piccolo edition sold exclusively through Lucas Museum retail locations. Texts by filmmaker George Lucas and director Guillermo del Toro are joined by an introduction from Ryan Linkof, the museum’s senior curator, and head of film programs, with featured artists including Thomas Hart Benton, Jessie Willcox Smith, Frank Frazetta, Maxfield Parrish, Norman Rockwell and N.C. Wyeth.
Rather than arranging the work strictly by time period or medium, the books are organized thematically, placing intimate human moments alongside imagined worlds, historical images and creations that have become part of popular culture, creating connections between artists and forms that might not ordinarily appear together. That range reflects the vision behind the Lucas Museum itself. George Lucas has collected narrative art for more than 50 years, building a founding collection of more than 40,000 works that stretches from illustrators such as Rockwell, Smith, Parrish, and Wyeth to comic artists including Winsor McCay, George Herriman, Jack Kirby and Frazetta. It also includes work by muralists Judith F. Baca and Diego Rivera, photographers Robert Capa and Gordon Parks, and painters Artemisia Gentileschi, Jacob Lawrence, Charles White and Robert Colescott, with movie posters, documentaries, costumes, and cinematic artifacts further expanding the museum’s definition of narrative art.
A spread featuring the work of Frank Frazetta highlights the influential fantasy artist’s place within the history of visual storytelling. (Photo: TASCHEN.)A dedicated section of the publication explores the visual universe of Star Wars through original production artwork, concept paintings, costumes and vehicles, revealing the collaborative process behind one of popular culture’s most enduring sagas and showing how individual ideas developed into a universe that has inspired generations. That inclusion is central to the museum’s larger argument: an image doesn’t need to hang within one traditional category to carry artistic or emotional power. Illustration, comics, film design, and other widely shared forms can shape how people understand courage, fear, history, identity, and the possibilities of worlds beyond their own. Narrative art can be traced from cave drawings and hieroglyphics to paintings, murals, photography, film, and digital media, and although the methods change, its purpose remains recognizable: to preserve experiences, communicate values, spark imagination and connect people through stories.
A spread featuring artwork from Ozma of Oz demonstrates the publication’s wide-ranging approach to illustration, comics, and narrative art. (Photo: TASCHEN.)Founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art was built around the belief that illustrated stories reflect shared ideas and help build community. The museum will occupy a five-story, approximately 300,000-square-foot building in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park, designed by Ma Yansong of MAD with Stantec, featuring galleries, two theaters, a library, retail space, a café, a restaurant and spaces for education and public events. The surrounding landscape, designed by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA, transforms land once used as asphalt parking lots into gardens, walkways, and public green space.
By bringing fine art, illustration, comics and cinema into the same conversation, the Lucas Museum and TASCHEN present visual storytelling as a living tradition rather than a fixed category. From a quiet painted scene to a galaxy far, far away, images have the power to make people feel connected, inspired and, sometimes, filled with the belief that anything is possible.
A detailed look at the Millennium Falcon illustrates the craftsmanship and collaboration behind the enduring visual universe of Star Wars. (Photo: TASCHEN.)The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens September 22, 2026, in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park. For additional information, visit the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
