LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will host its 15th Art+Film Gala on Saturday, November 7, honoring artist Vija Celmins, one of the most influential visual artists working today, and filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, a widely celebrated master of contemporary cinema.

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LACMA trustee Eva Chow and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, longtime champions of the museum’s film initiatives, return as 2026 Art+Film Gala Co-Chairs. Gucci continues its invaluable support as the Presenting Sponsor, a role it has held since the gala’s inception in 2011.

LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director Michael Govan said, “This year, we are honoring two icons of visual creativity. Whether in painting, drawing, printmaking, or other media, Vija Celmins’s exacting renderings of the natural world blend realism and imagination, resulting in sublimely beautiful works. Likewise, Denis Villeneuve’s meticulously crafted worlds give his films an unforgettable visual impact, from contemplative and cerebral stories to global blockbusters. It will be a privilege for LACMA to honor both of these artists and their extraordinary careers in November.”

“I’m excited to bring together an amazing group of people once again to recognize the incredible work of Vija Celmins and Denis Villeneuve, and to support LACMA’s art and film initiatives,” said Gala Co-chair Eva Chow. “I’m deeply grateful that our longstanding partner Gucci has returned as our presenting sponsor. This event would not be possible without their continued generosity to the museum.”

Proceeds from the annual Art+Film Gala go toward underwriting LACMA’s initiative to make film more central to the museum’s curatorial programming, while also funding LACMA’s broader mission. This includes exhibitions, acquisitions, and educational programming that explore the intersection of art and film.





2026 Art+Film Honorees

Vija Celmins (b. 1938) has long been admired for her meticulous renderings of natural imagery, including ocean waves, desert floors, and night skies. Her paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints depict scenes that are too vast or mercurial to be fixed in the mind’s eye. She first became interested in representing the visible world during the early 1960s, when she began to paint the objects in her Los Angeles studio before turning her attention to photographs found in magazines and history books.

By the end of the 1960s, she had set aside paint on canvas in favor of graphite on paper. When she began painting again in the 1980s, drawing and printmaking remained central to her art. Celmins has had one-person exhibitions at numerous museums, including the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Menil Collection in Houston. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1996 and received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1997.

Denis Villeneuve is an Academy Award®–nominated director, screenwriter, and producer whose masterful world-building and unique visuals have established him as one of the premier filmmakers working today. He has built his career on films that blend cerebral storytelling with visceral cinematic experience, from Sicario, Blade Runner 2049, Prisoners, and Arrival, which earned him a Best Director nomination.

In 2021, DUNE: PART ONE earned six Academy Awards® and multiple guild and critics’ awards. Its sequel, DUNE: PART TWO, expanded with bolder visual ambition and complexity, surpassing over $700 million worldwide and winning two Academy Awards®, with additional recognition from BAFTA, Critics’ Choice and major guilds. Villeneuve will conclude the trilogy with DUNE: PART THREE in December, reuniting its core cast. He is also set to direct the next James Bond film for Amazon MGM Studios.