Museums

YOU SAY Oxford Circus, you think crowded streets and busy shops – but there is a whole other side to it you might not have known about.

So we’ve taken it on in two different way – as a busy mum looking to keep her kid busy, to a girly weekend in the city without going to the shops.

Blow dry bars, Mexican afternoon teas and gorgeous Italian dinners

Kara Godfrey, Deputy Travel Editor, explores the busy centre on a girly weekend wanting some pampering.

Growing up in the countryside, my first impression of London was the hubbub of Soho, with bustling streets full of eager shoppers elbowing each other out of the way.

Yet 20 years later, having since moved to (and left) the crazy capital, I know there is more to the iconic city centre than its shops.

And with the announcement that it is about to become pedestrianized, it’s about to become an attraction in its own right.

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If you want to explore the centre of London without actually dipping into the shops, it also makes for the perfect girly day out either with your best mate or your mum – if you know where to go as a local.

It is a fantastic destination for a pamper, with affordable nail salons and hairdressers – and did you know one of London’s most famed blow dry bars is found at the bottom of the John Lewis department store?

Having first launched in Chelsea back in 2014 (becoming a fave with the Made in Chelsea stars), Duck & Dry has become an institution for the place to go before a big event.

I sank into the plush chairs, laidback music overheard while I chatted to my hairdresser as my hair was massaged and washed.

As a woman in my mid-30s, I’ve realised that it’s the little luxuries that make life worth it and a person kneading all of my worries away is one of them.

Just 30 minutes later, I left a new woman with a fresh new do so gorgeous, I even bought a blow dry brush on my way out to try and replicate it at home.

(Don’t stop there though, one of my favourite nails bars, Cona, is just around the corner, with the hidden salon tucked behind the bold oranged painted cafe front).

Hair done, nailed fixed – we needed something to line our stomach and gone are the days of our 20s where we opted for a bottomless brunch.

Being more afternoon tea gals, one of the more unique ones is found in the Treehouse Hotel just off the main high street.

This isn’t your usual afternoon tea, however, (although you will still find a scone or two on top) – it’s called the Afternoon Te-Quila, so expect a Mexican fusion.

Starting with a freshly made margharita, we gorged on fresh fish tacos, pumpkin pies and even a unique chocolate taco, pumped full of decadent chocolate mousse.

The views are just as amazing, looking out over London from the top floor, but as I sat under a ceiling of green hanging plants, I was transported to somewhere much more tropical.

There is so much to do outside of this as well that doesn’t require you to lug shopping bags around town.

Or how about catching a West End show? The Palladium has some fantastic shows coming up including Delta Goodrem, Michael Ball and of course the Christmas panto.

(While I might have said there is so much to do along the high street without the shops, I would still recommend popping into the new M&S flagship, with four entire floors of homeware, clothes and a Food Hall. I may have left with both new linen trousers and some Percy Pigs…)

Don’t think I forgot about dinner, because London isn’t one of the world’s best food capitals for no reason.

And with more than 600 restaurants to choose from, according to OpenTable, where do you even start?

Well I’ve found just the place, if you want somewhere slightly quieter away from the crowds, but with fantastic service, a low-key atmosphere and hearty, Italian portions.

Enter Lavo at the BoTree.

Start at the bar for a cocktail – while the menu might sound confusing, it explains which cocktail they are similar to, so I had their version of a negroni.

On weekends there is also a live DJ who toes the line of great, lo-fi music without being so loud you can’t hear each other.

Slightly woozy at this point, my direction to my table was welcome before gorging on towering piles of tuna tartare and large bowls of penne a la vodka.

Our extremely funny server even tempted us into sharing what is now going down as one of the best tiramasus we’ve ever eaten.

And when you need to rest your weary feet from a day of pounding the pavements, you can’t get much more central than the Radisson Blu Bond Street.

Currently undergoing a renovation, it is just steps from the main road, with some of the best views of the high street from my room overlooking the shops.

With Oxford Circus not having many late night openings, don’t worry about not getting any sleep, as it was super quiet once everything had closed.

The cosy restaurant – with that brand new smell – also had a fantastic breakfast spread to refuel, from pancakes and avocado toast to all of the pastries and trimming of a Full English.

So while Oxford Circus will always be known at the shopping high street, there is so much more to it to bring your out of town friend, siblings or parents to without having to step into a shop.

Unless you get a Percy Pig craving, that is.

Illusion museums, kid-friendly food halls and ‘treehouse’ hotels

Caroline McGuire, Head of Travel (Digital), explores as a mum with a seven-year-old to keep occupied

As a London mum, I regularly take my seven year old into the city centre for theatre, museums, parks and all the other awesome attractions it has to offer kids. 

But Oxford Street? Are you mad? It’s somewhere I’d actively avoided, assuming it was the worst place for a very active kid who loves running around and touching everything in sight. 

How wrong I was. Because we recently spent an overnight stay on Europe’s most famous high street… and it was one of our best 24 hours in the capital. 

Oxford Street has changed a lot since I was a kid, coming up from the home counties to spend my Christmas money at Topshop. 

In some ways for the bad (those many American candy stores), but in many other ways for the good. 

As some of the big chain stores have departed, enterprising new ventures have opened up that are perfect for a family day out. 

Take for instance, the Twist Museum. A brilliantly fun illusion museum – even though the grumpy middle aged woman in me still insists it’s not a museum.

We had such a great time exploring all of the mind-bending activities, our favourites being the 3D hologram creator, the mirror room and the ‘big and small room’. 

It was so cool that I now have three pictures from there alone on my fridge at home – high praise. 

Equally fun was Swingers Golf and Carnival Games, which I’d always written off as an adults-only venue for big kids at heart to have fun with a beer. 

Not so, as during the day in the school holidays it was packed with families enjoying easily the best crazy golf I’ve ever done in my life. 

Then you get a half-hour pass to play as many games as you can in a retro-style arcade. 

As a parent who’s forked out more pound coins than I care to remember at amusement arcades, it was a total joy to do it all for free… and with a time limit. Plus, I got to sip on an extremely good frozen marg while I did it.

If the kids are feeling hungry, their food offering is a godsend. Several high-end food trucks like Patty and Bun burgers and Breddos tacos mean you can all pick what you want to eat. 

If you’re looking for something every so slightly more highbrow, we ended our day at Frameless – the very cool digital art experience where you’re put inside famous paintings, as they surround you on huge screens and come to life.

It was really surprising to see how much my son engaged with such old paintings, which he may have dismissed as stuffy in a gallery, by bringing them to life. 

Of course after pounding the streets for so long, we were in need of some refreshments, so we headed to Market Halls, which has every food any foodie or fussy kid would want. 

I dined on Malaysian Nasi Goreng and Thai soup, while my son had savoury crepes for main… and Nutella crepes for pudding. 

Thankfully, with our extremely full stomachs we didn’t have far to go to lay our heads, as we were booked into the Treehouse Hotel, an achingly cool and modern property on Langham Place, with some of the best views of London I’ve ever seen. 

Our room was very Scandi-style, with a lovely window seat so we could look out over the city. 

The next morning, we managed to find space in our stomachs for brekkie, at the Mexican inspired Madera restaurant, where I had a bagel topped with scramble tofu, vegan cheese and jalapeno pickled red onions, while my son opted for the waffles with whipped cream and berries. 

We lingered far too long over breakfast, sad to tear ourselves away from the stunning views from our table. 

All that fun of museums, art exhibitions, golf, arcades, and some fantastic food and drink, without stepping foot into a shop?

Teenage me would never believe it.

The New West End Company represents 100 streets in the district including Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street.

They explain: “New West End Company is solely focused on representing and keeping the West End thriving. Established more than two decades ago, today our 800+ membership includes the most respected names in global retail, leisure, hospitality, real estate and business.

“We keep our West End streets clean and safe, promote world-class experiences, provide trusted data and insight, and make the case for policies that support growth. Between 2026-2031, we are investing £60 million to make the district stronger, safer and even more competitive.

“Together with our partners – including Westminster City Council, the Metropolitan Police, the Mayor of London – we are proud to shape the district our members thrive in.“

When it comes to scary movies, the motion picture academy has historically been a bit squeamish. Horror has been a cornerstone of the industry since the beginning, but Oscar voters have rarely embraced it. Only one horror film has ever won best picture: 1991’s “The Silence of the Lambs.” Even “Sinners,” which made history this year with a record 16 nominations, couldn’t close the deal.

Now, though, horror has gotten inside the house.

Opening Saturday and running through July 25, 2027, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ new exhibition, “The Horror Show,” explores more than a century of horror, from silent-era landmarks “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1920) and “Nosferatu” (1922) through “Psycho” (1960) and “The Exorcist” (1973) to “Midsommar” (2019) and “Weapons” (2025). Drawn from the academy’s collection and 62 private lenders around the world, it brings together costumes, props, prosthetics, creatures and production art.

An original facehugger from Ridley Scott’s “Alien” (1979), part of the exhibition’s collection of creatures and production materials from the sci-fi series.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Introducing the exhibition at Thursday’s press preview, Robert Englund, who played the razor-fingered Freddy Krueger in the “Nightmare on Elm Street” films, recalled how the genre was once regarded in Hollywood. “Back when I started, we would sort of get the lousy table in the commissary by the kitchen door,” he said. Now, with the academy mounting an exhibition devoted to horror and the genre continuing to thrive at the box office, Englund added, “I think we’re getting some respect.”

Rather than a simple chronological tour through the genre’s history, the exhibition is organized into six themed “chambers” devoted to Gothic horror, psychological horror, science, slashers, religion and ghosts, with settings ranging from a shadowy crypt to a killer’s house and a haunted living room.

Storyboards from 1973’s “The Exorcist,” a clapperboard from 1976’s “The Omen” and the original Necronomicon from 1987’s “Evil Dead II” are among the artifacts in the exhibition’s religion-themed chamber.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Senior exhibitions curator Jessica Niebel says the idea was to walk a line between a traditional museum exhibition and a haunted-house experience.

“Horror films are about evoking an emotional response and we’re hoping the exhibition will do the same,” she says. “These are all original objects and they tell a story. We wanted to place them in an environment that brings them to life and activates them.” (The museum advises parental guidance; a smaller, family-friendly “Zombies!” exhibition is next door.)

So what’s lurking inside? Here are 10 sights worth braving. Read on, if you dare.

See Bela Lugosi’s original Dracula cape

Bela Lugosi’s original cape from 1931’s “Dracula,” on public display for the first time after undergoing an extensive restoration.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Nearly a century after Bela Lugosi first swept it around his shoulders, Dracula’s cape doesn’t need much introduction. Worn by Lugosi in Universal’s 1931 “Dracula,” the simple black cape became as inseparable from the character as his hypnotic stare and Hungarian accent, establishing the visual language of the screen vampire for generations to come. Lugosi, who had first played the Count onstage in 1927, kept the cape after filming and continued wearing it for stage and public appearances until his death in 1956. Now part of the Academy Museum’s collection, the nearly century-old garment underwent an extensive restoration before “The Horror Show.” Remarkably, this is the first time it has ever been put on public display.

Come face-to-face with Hannibal Lecter

Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter costume and restraints from 1991’s “The Silence of the Lambs” are on display, including the serial killer’s unmistakable mask.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter, the brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer at the center of Jonathan Demme’s “The Silence of the Lambs,” is unsettling enough standing perfectly still. When he has to be moved, the precautions are extreme. Hopkins wore this orange prison uniform, straitjacket and muzzle when Lecter is transported under heavy security, strapped upright to a hand truck. Costume designer Colleen Atwood devised the ensemble, while Ed Cubberly created the famous fiberglass muzzle, deliberately leaving it uncoated to evoke the look of dried, taut skin. Seeing the outfit up close is a reminder of just how little Hopkins needed to work with: Even with virtually his entire body immobilized and much of his face obscured, Lecter somehow became more frightening.

Trace the evolution of the Xenomorph

A towering Xenomorph created by Legacy Effects for 2024’s “Alien: Romulus” offers an up-close look at one of horror’s most enduring monsters.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Nearly half a century after Ridley Scott’s “Alien” introduced H.R. Giger’s nightmarish vision to moviegoers, the creature still looks like nothing else in science fiction. The exhibition brings together original Giger artwork depicting the alien egg and an original facehugger from the 1979 film, the spidery parasite whose method of reproduction helped make “Alien” a landmark of body horror. There’s also an original drawing by James Cameron, who took over the franchise with 1986’s “Aliens.” But the hardest thing to miss is a towering Xenomorph created by Legacy Effects for 2024’s “Alien: Romulus.” Up close, its elongated head, skeletal body and glistening double set of jaws reveal just how much unsettling detail goes into a creature often glimpsed onscreen in darkness.

See Dracula’s armor go from page to screen

Eiko Ishioka’s blood-red armor for Gary Oldman’s Count Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Before Gary Oldman’s Dracula became a pale, bewigged count, he was Vlad the Impaler, encased in one of the most striking costumes in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Eiko Ishioka designed the blood-red battle armor with a ribbed surface evoking both exposed human musculature and an armadillo’s shell, while the pointed helmet foreshadows the wolf Dracula later becomes. Displayed alongside several of Ishioka’s original design drawings, the armor offers a fascinating look at how her ideas evolved from pencil on paper into something almost anatomical. Ishioka, a celebrated Japanese graphic designer making her first foray into Hollywood costume design, won an Oscar for her work on the film.

Log on to the original ‘Blair Witch’ website

Visitors can explore the groundbreaking viral promotional website for 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project,” which blurred the line between the film’s fictional story and reality.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Long before viral marketing had a name, 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project” was using the still-young internet to convince moviegoers that three student filmmakers might actually be missing in the woods. Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez created the film’s promotional website in 1998, filling it with fake police reports, evidence photographs and an elaborate mythology while carefully avoiding any suggestion that their story was fictional. They posted on message boards and continually updated the site before the film’s release, helping turn a tiny found-footage horror movie into a grassroots phenomenon. Here, you can sit down at a chunky late-’90s computer and explore the original site yourself. Nearby is one of the movie’s crudely constructed stick figures — a reminder that sometimes a few twigs and some twine are all it takes to lodge an image permanently in the culture.

Meet the slashers

Costumes and props from some of horror’s most notorious killers fill the exhibition’s slasher chamber, including Candyman, Ghostface, Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger and Art the Clown.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Slasher movies have always depended on a memorable killer, and the genre has produced some of horror’s most instantly recognizable figures. Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Ghostface and Art the Clown are gathered here in full costume, looking less like museum pieces than a welcoming committee you’d rather not encounter. Nearby cases turn slasher movies’ grisly tools of the trade into artifacts, with masks and weapons from “Saw,” “Us,” “M3GAN,” “The Black Phone” and other films. It’s a reminder of how little a slasher movie really needs to get under your skin.

Open the Babadook’s book

The handmade “Mister Babadook” pop-up book created by illustrator Alex Juhasz for Jennifer Kent’s 2014 “The Babadook.”

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Sometimes the scariest special effect is a pop-up book. In Jennifer Kent’s 2014 “The Babadook,” the sinister children’s book “Mister Babadook” heralds the arrival of the top-hatted creature that terrorizes a widowed mother and her young son, while giving physical form to the grief consuming them. Kent turned to illustrator Alex Juhasz to create the handmade book, drawing inspiration from the eerie silhouetted animation of German filmmaker Lotte Reiniger from the 1920s. Opened to one of its more elaborate spreads, the original prop is both beautifully crafted and deeply unsettling, its seemingly innocent children’s-book mechanics revealing a grinning black figure and the ominous command: “LET ME IN.”

Take a selfie with Norma Bates

A re-creation of the mummified Mrs. Bates from Alfred Hitchcock’s immortal “Psycho” gives visitors a chance to pose with Norman Bates’ dearly departed mother.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The Academy Museum wanted the original mummified Mrs. Bates head from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” but there was one problem: She was too fragile to travel. The Cinémathèque Française, which owns the 1960 prop, declined the museum’s loan request. “I was really disappointed about that, but it’s totally understandable,” Niebel says. “We probably wouldn’t have lent her if she were in our collection.” So the museum commissioned Oscar-winning makeup artist and sculptor Mike Hill, fresh off his work on Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” to research and create a full-body Mrs. Bates instead. Unlike the many delicate original artifacts elsewhere in the exhibition, this one was made to let visitors get close and take home their own slightly unsettling family portrait. Just don’t get too close. As a nearby sign warns, “Mother isn’t quite herself today — do not touch, she needs her space.”

Get grossed out by Monstro Elisasue

The spectacularly gross Monstro Elisasue bust, created by makeup and special-effects artist Pierre-Olivier Persin for Coralie Fargeat’s 2024 “The Substance.”

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

By the time Coralie Fargeat’s 2024 “The Substance” reaches its gloriously grotesque climax, Demi Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle and Margaret Qualley’s Sue have effectively fused into the spectacularly deformed creature known as Monstro Elisasue. The exhibition puts designer Pierre-Olivier Persin’s bust of the creature alongside the syringes, vials and other medical paraphernalia from the mysterious Substance kit that sets the movie’s nightmare in motion. Fargeat has described body horror as a “weapon of expression” for confronting the pressures placed on women’s bodies, particularly as they age. As Fargeat puts it in the exhibition’s wall text, she wanted audiences to see that women’s “pearly smiles are made of so many horrendous things that we have to keep within ourselves.”

Make your escape through the Blood Room

The Blood Room, streaked and splattered with cinematic gore, provides the only way out of “The Horror Show.”

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Fittingly, there is no clean getaway from “The Horror Show.” Every visitor must exit through the Blood Room, a gruesomely immersive space whose walls are streaked, smeared, splattered and practically dripping with the red stuff. To get the gore just right, Niebel turned to Oscar-winning special makeup effects artist Howard Berger, a veteran of such splatterific films as “Evil Dead II” and “Kill Bill.” Berger worked with the museum and its fabricators to create the room’s layers of fake blood, varying the colors and consistencies to suggest everything from dark, dried stains to fresh blood still running down the walls. Just when you think you’ve made it through, the exhibition has one last gruesome touch: To escape, you have to push your way through a set of bloody butcher curtains.

If George Lucas invites you to a party, you go.

That much was clear Saturday at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art’s opening-night soiree, where the guest list was as celebrity-heavy as any Academy Awards after-party. As the festivities kicked off around sunset in the courtyard under the museum’s towering elliptical oculus, Oprah Winfrey hugged Robert De Niro, and Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart skipped the red carpet after chatting with Spike Lee. Laura Dern and Greta Gerwig laughed together by the entrance while Samuel L. Jackson plopped down on a curved bench, joking, “Hey, look what I did!”

He didn’t sit for long because Cynthia Erivo and Andy Garcia showed up and there were more hugs and handshakes and hellos. Owen Wilson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kim Kardashian, Meg Ryan, Jack Quaid, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Justin Trudeau, Mark Hamill and Magic Johnson were there too, and that was just the beginning.

Gov. Gavin Newsom attended the opening-night party for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art alongside a host of other notable guests and celebrities.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

After a rousing performance by a white-robe-clad vocal collective called Voices of Fire, co-founded by Pharrell Williams, Lucas’ wife Mellody Hobson noted that, “George kept saying, ‘Will this person come? Do you think this person will come?’”

“I said, ‘They will all come,’” Hobson said as the crowd laughed during opening remarks on a raised platform in the museum’s grand lobby.

And so they did. There was even a banner moment inside the posh fifth-floor Skywalker Grill where a group of directors gathered to be photographed in what could very well become a seminal photo of Hollywood influence in the 21st century. The shot included Lucas, Jon M. Chu, Chris Columbus, Francis Ford Coppola, Lee Daniels, Guillermo del Toro, Jon Favreau, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron Howard, Peter Jackson, Chris Meledandri, Denis Villeneuve, Christopher Nolan, Spike Lee, Tyler Perry, Steven Spielberg, Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, Nathan Fielder and David Benioff.

Organizers were scrambling to find Gerwig, but she had dashed off somewhere else.

“Star Wars” legend Mark Hamill and his wife, Marilou York, were guests at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opening party.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

There were artists in attendance too, of course, but not as many. Jeff Koons, Refik Anadol, Judy Baca and Takashi Murakami strolled through the crowd, as did museum directors including the Broad’s Joanne Heyler and Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Michael Govan, who was relieved to be attending someone else’s party after hosting so many of his own in April and May when the new Geffen Galleries opened.

Lucas and Hobson went to great lengths to explain why the Lucas Museum matters and why it is different from other museums. Their comments, in many ways, sought to address the criticism that has been lobbed at the museum since it held its press preview a few weeks back.

Though it has received a number of rave reviews, critics have called narrative art a false conceit and argued that the juxtaposition of masterworks with pop culture ephemera does not work. Much of the criticism has been focused on a perceived lack of context since there is almost no wall text clarifying why certain curatorial choices were made.

George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson hosted an extravagant opening party at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

“When I started it, everybody said, ‘You’re crazy. You shouldn’t do it. It’s not going to work. People are going to come after you,’” Lucas said of his plans for the museum. “I said, ‘People have come after me all my life, especially in the movies.’”

Lucas also addressed why he curated the museum’s 100,000 square feet of gallery space on his own, noting that at a certain point plans were “getting off the rails.”

“I’m going to have to take this over because people don’t understand what I’m doing,” Lucas recalled thinking. “The idea that illustration is an art form and illustrators are artists was just too much for somebody who had been taught otherwise by the art schools that they went to and the universities that they went to.”

People with PhDs often can’t see the big picture, Lucas said, “You can’t say ‘This is art. This is not art.’ Art is in the eye of the beholder. If it is emotional to you, then it’s art. And, of course, I’ve been criticized up and down and sideways for that. But I believe it wholeheartedly — that you get to decide what art is.”

Members of the Virginia Beach vocal collective Voices of Fire, co-founded by Bishop Ezekiel Williams and Pharrell Williams perform at the Lucas Museum.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Lucas noted that throughout his career he has worked with many illustrators, “and I will tell you, they are as talented as any artist I’ve ever met. This is the way of giving back to them something that they’ve all wanted … inevitably, all of the illustrators say the same thing — everybody from R. Crumb to Rockwell — they all say, ‘I wish I could be in a museum,’ but they can’t. There isn’t a major museum in the world that’ll have this kind of art in it. I’m hoping this will change that.”

Lucas’ comments came after his friend and co-host Queen Latifah noted to the cheering crowd that, “Paris has the Louvre, New York has the Met and now L.A. has the artistic equal.”

Guests mingle at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opening party.

(Carlin Stiehl/For The Times)

It took more than a decade for the Lucas Museum to land in L.A. after a search that included Chicago and San Francisco as well as lots of civic pushback and lawsuits over the use of public parkland.

“We did not realize how hard it would be to give a city a museum,” Hobson said during her remarks, later joking: “If your husband or spouse comes home and says they want to build a museum, I suggest your response is a hard no.”

Laura Dern, left, and Greta Gerwig spent the early part of the night chatting and laughing.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Hobson went on to extol Lucas’ vision and his ability to never waver from his dream for the museum.

“He was driven to create a space that would showcase the brilliant illustrators that he thought were too often overlooked and ignored,” Hobson said. “And if critics say that a museum of narrative art is too much like a popcorn movie and not enough like an art film, well, we love popcorn movies in our family.”

Like a popcorn movie, the evening ended happily with a drone show in the night sky narrated by Winfrey and Jackson, and featuring images from the museum’s collection including the Cave of Altamira, N.C. Wyeth’s “The Storybook,” Julie Bell’s “The Huntress,” Banksy’s “Girl With Balloon,” the “Star Wars” Millennium Falcon and Maxfield Parrish’s “Ecstasy.”

Afterward the party moved inside from the rooftop terrace for a performance by the Black Eyed Peas.