[2] Once completed, the museum will hold all forms of visual storytelling, including painting, photography, sculpture, illustration, comic art, performance, and video.

[4] The Lucas Museum will house works by artists such as Judy Baca, N.C. Wyeth, Carrie Mae Weems, Diego Rivera, Norman Rockwell, Frank Frazetta, Ralph McQuarrie, Jacob Lawrence, Kadir Nelson, Paul Cadmus, Yinka Shonibare, and Jack Kirby.

[5][6] In 2021, the museum announced the acquisition of the archive of materials related to the development and execution of Judy Baca's half-mile-long mural The History of California, popularly known as the Great Wall of Los Angeles, located in the San Fernando Valley.

Dorothy Dandridge, Paul Robeson, Duke Ellington, Sidney Poitier, and Josephine Baker are among the stars whose work is documented in the collection.

[18] Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti also made a bid to host the project, offering Lucas land in Exposition Park adjacent to the University of Southern California.

[21] After the formal announcement of the museum's location on Chicago's lake shore and the later unveiling of its architecture, the project faced opposition as it had in San Francisco.

In an editorial, the Chicago Tribune condemned the size of the structure, referring to it as "a monument to its patron rather than a modest addition to a democratic public space".

Friends of the Parks, a Chicago-area preservation organization, opposed the plan, citing a ban on development on the land proposed for the Lucas Museum.

[33] In Crain's Chicago Business, Greg Hinz derided it as "[yelling] and [carrying] on, in its own way defacing the city's lakefront as much as any teenager with a can of spray paint...".

[36] On May 3, 2016, a statement released by Mellody Hobson, wife of George Lucas, stated that the couple was seeking other cities to host the museum after a protracted confrontation with Friends of the Parks.