George Lucas’s Museum of Narrative Art Acquires a Major African American Cinema Archive

The forthcoming Lucas Museum of Narrative Art,
founded by filmmaker George Lucas his wife, Mellody Hobson,
has has acquired the Separate Cinema Archive, a collection of
37,000 objects documenting African American cinema history from
1904 to the present day.

Separate Cinema’s holdings of film posters, photography, and
other archival materials are a natural fit for Lucas’s Los Angeles
museum, which eschews traditional
definitions of fine art to embrace all popular storytelling
visual forms, from painting and sculptures to comic books and
illustration—and, of course, film.

The backbone of the museum’s 100,000-work collection includes
20th-century American art—one high-profile acquisition
was Shuffleton’s
Barbershop (1959) by Norman Rockwell—and original
artifacts from Lucas’s beloved Star Wars franchise, as
well as other Hollywood memorabilia.

“The Separate Cinema Archive will not only provide film scholars
with incredible opportunities for research, this treasure trove
will also catalyze important conversations about the inspiring
narratives of African American perspectives represented through
film,” said Lucas Museum director and CEO Sandra
Jackson-Dumont in a statement.

The museum hired Jackson-Dumont in
October to succeed Don Bacigalupi, the institution’s founding
president, who resigned last February. The long-awaited institution
decided—after much deliberation and an
aborted plan to build
in Chicago—to call Los Angeles
home in early 2017. Construction
began the following year and the majority of the work
is set to be completed by late 2021.

Although an opening date for the museum has not yet been set, it
is celebrating the Separate Cinema Archive acquisition with a day
of public programming. On February 8, it will host screenings
of The
Wiz (1978) and Do the Right Thing
(1989)—two of the films represented in the archive—at the Baldwin
Hills Crenshaw Plaza’s Cinemark Theater.

“It is exciting to celebrate Black History Month by introducing
the important Separate Cinema Archive and by screening these two
iconic films even before our museum opens,” said
Jackson-Dumont.

The screening of The Wiz will take place
during Melanin Market LA, a regular
pop-up event held outside the theater featuring black-owned
businesses. Following a showing of Do the Right
Thing, Lucas Museum film curator Ryan Linkof will speak with
author and archivist Jacqueline Stewart, a professor of cinema and
media studies at the University of Chicago, about how movies have
portrayed race throughout cinematic history.

See more film posters from the Separate Cinema Archive
below.

The film screenings will be held at the Cinemark Theater at
Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, 4020 Marlton Avenue, Los Angeles,
California on February 8, 2020. 

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