Image: Claremont Lewis Museum of Art, Claremont
The Claremont Lewis Museum of Art is presenting 'Julian Lucas: Happiness Pursued. Paradise Lost.', a photography exhibition that examines home, displacement and the American Dream through the lens of Black experience in the United States. According to the museum, the show is Claremont-based photographer Julian Lucas’s first solo museum exhibition. It opened with a member preview and public reception on April 4 and runs through July 26, 2026.
The exhibition is organized around Lucas’s photographic series and frames home not only as a place, but as a state of mind. The museum says the project asserts that the American Dream is stratified according to race and access to power, and that the ideal of equal opportunity carries sharply different meanings for Black Americans. The exhibition title itself, 'Happiness Pursued. Paradise Lost.', points to that tension between aspiration and loss.
Museum text places the work in the context of the United States’ 250th anniversary year, using that national milestone as a backdrop for Lucas’s inquiry into belonging. The exhibition description connects the promise of the Declaration of Independence with questions of housing, place and belonging, noting that the dream of home ownership is bound up with larger ideas of liberty and access. It also stresses the contradictions faced by Black Americans, including those whose ancestors were taken from Africa and held in slavery in the United States.
Several bodies of work are included. The museum highlights 'The Exodus Series', which documents the ongoing story of the Great Migration and the continuing movement of Black families seeking affordable housing and safer lives outside the urban core. Lucas’s own family history is part of that narrative: the museum says he moved to South Central Los Angeles when he was seven and later experienced overpolicing, segregation and redlining. The exhibition text also links the work to the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, in January 2025, when Lucas photographed people who lost their homes.
Another section, 'Apt #31', turns to a more intimate setting. In that series, Lucas was given access to a one-bedroom apartment to document family life inside. The museum says the project raises questions about whether a photographer can capture objective reality, while contrasting the privacy of interior space with Lucas’s usual focus on public outdoor environments. Gallery listings at the museum include 'Julian Lucas, Exodus Series' and 'Julian Lucas, Apt 31', the latter dated 2017.
The museum’s exhibition page identifies Lucas as a contemporary artist based in Claremont whose photographs range from fine art to photojournalism and adhere to analog techniques. It also notes his related projects, including the 2015 founding of Mirrored Society, a photobook bookstore, and the 2018 launch of Print Pomona Art Book Fair, later followed by The Pomonan, a digital platform for independent and censorship-free journalism. The exhibition is supported by the Pasadena Art Alliance.
At the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art, the exhibition’s schedule includes a member preview on Saturday, April 4, 5-6 p.m., a public reception that same day from 6-9 p.m., and Art Walk dates on April 4, May 2 and June 6. The museum lists its location at 200 W. First Street in the historic Claremont Depot.
