{"id":217959,"date":"2025-12-06T04:27:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T04:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/217959\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T04:27:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T04:27:14","slug":"lucas-museum-exodus-continues-as-pilar-tompkins-rivas-departs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/217959\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucas Museum Exodus Continues as Pilar Tompkins Rivas Departs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWith the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art<\/a> inching closer to finally opening next fall, an exodus afflicting the Los Angeles institution\u2019s leadership is continuing, with Pilar Tompkins Rivas<\/a>, the museum\u2019s chief curator and deputy director of curatorial and collections, having left her post. The Los Angeles Times first reported<\/a> news of her departure on Friday.<\/p>\n

\n\tFounded by ARTnews Top 200 Collectors George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the museum has long been in the works, though it only officially set its opening date last month. With an official inauguration date of September 22, 2026, the museum is set to focus on what it has termed \u201cnarrative art,\u201d or work that \u201ctells the story of a society,\u201d according to Lucas.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Aerial<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the run-up to its opening, the museum has made headlines for its acquisitions of high-profile artworks, including key pieces by Robert Colescott, Norman Rockwell, and Frida Kahlo.<\/p>\n

\n\tTompkins Rivas, who directed the Vincent Price Art Museum prior to taking the post at the Lucas, was one of six women appointed to high-ranking posts<\/a> at the forthcoming museum in 2020 by then director and CEO Sandra Jackson-Dumont. Most of those hires were women of color. According to the Los Angeles Times, just two of Jackson-Dumont\u2019s hires remain. Jackson-Dumont exited the institution<\/a> in February. Then, in May, the museum laid off<\/a> 15 employees, or 14 percent of its full-time staff.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Jackson-Dumont left, the Lucas Museum said it was initiating a new leadership structure in which Lucas himself took over what the institution obliquely described as \u201ccontent direction.\u201d The CEO post, meanwhile, was taken up in an interim capacity by Jim Gianopulos, the former chairman and CEO of 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement to the Los Angeles Times, the Lucas Museum said that it had \u201cno immediate plans to replace Pilar\u2019s role,\u201d but that \u201cGeorge Lucas will continue to oversee curatorial content and direction.\u201d The statement continued, \u201cWe thank Pilar Tompkins Rivas for her hard work over the last five years, which has been instrumental in preparing the museum for its opening. We wish her well in her future endeavors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tARTnews has reached out to Tompkins Rivas and the Lucas Museum for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tOther high-profile figures to have departed the Lucas Museum prior to its opening include Amanda Hunt, who served as director of public programs and creative practice and left for the Walker Art Center<\/a>, and Dan Nadel, who was formerly curator at large and recently joined the Whitney Museum<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art inching closer to finally opening next fall, an exodus afflicting the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[11845,365,362,363,364,366,18,117,19,17,100919,117996],"class_list":{"0":"post-217959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-artnews-top-200-collectors","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-eire","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-lucas-museum-of-narrative-art","19":"tag-pilar-tompkins-rivas"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115670734824919717","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}