As LACMA prepares for the 2026 public opening of the new David Geffen Galleries, the future home of the museum’s permanent collection spanning a breadth of eras and cultures, we’re sharing 50 iconic artworks that will be on view in the building over the next 50 weeks in the series 50 Works 50 Weeks.
In this second-century Roman copy of a Greek original, the goddess of war and wisdom is portrayed in her distinctive regalia. She wears a helmet adorned with a sphinx and griffins, a snake-fringed aegis over her chest and shoulders, and a breastplate with a medallion featuring the head of Medusa. Known as The Hope Athena (named for Thomas Hope, who first acquired and displayed it in his London mansion), this commanding marble sculpture will soon be installed in an enviable spot in the David Geffen Galleries.
In this video, curator Leah Lehmbeck discusses the sculpture’s future home in the new building, at the point where it crosses Wilshire Boulevard awash with natural light. “The advantage of being here is not just that you can see the sculpture from two sightlines, but that you can also see from the inside,” says Lehmbeck. “So the sculpture is placed in a way that will allow a visitor either to be drawn inwards, into an inner gallery, or outwards, from the gallery to the windows.”
“In the spirit of the David Geffen Galleries, she will be in conversation with other works of Athena to show how ubiquitous and important she was as a deity,” she says. The objects the sculpture will be displayed among include a Macedonian coin (c. 450 B.C.), on which the profile of the goddess is identifiable by her helmet, and a Greek red-figure amphora (c. 470–460 B.C.), where Athena is depicted pouring wine for Herakles.
The sculpture, however, will not only visually engage with works within the gallery, but with those outdoors as well. As Lehmbeck notes, “the other advantage of this building, which Peter Zumthor thought deeply about, was the transparency of the building itself and how it allows for a dialogue from the outside to the inside.” Visitors who find themselves in front of The Hope Athena will be able to see out the windows to the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Garden, which will feature works by August Rodin, who was himself inspired by classical sculpture.
This visual dialogue will go both ways: “When somebody is out there on the plaza, particularly at night, when the lights are on inside, one will be able to see the Athena beautifully lit up, here on her perch.” Poised between past and present, The Hope Athena will soon invite visitors to engage with antiquity in a space designed for timeless dialogue.