The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents “Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters,” opening Monday, Aug. 1. The exhibition explores del Toro’s creative process by bringing together elements from his films, objects from his vast personal collections, drawings from his notebooks, and approximately 60 objects from LACMA’s permanent collection.

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is sharing works from his extensive collection of horror film artwork, archive material and memorabilia. (photo courtesy of LACMA)

Del Toro is famous for movies such as “Hellboy,” “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Pacific Rim,” among many other film, television and book projects. The new exhibition at LACMA is the filmmaker’s first museum retrospective.

“To find beauty in the profane. To elevate the banal. To be moved by genre. These things are vital for my storytelling,” del Toro said. “This exhibition presents a small fraction of the things that have moved me, inspired me and consoled me as I transit through life. It’s a devotional sampling of the enormous love that is required to create, maintain and love monsters in our lives.”

“By bringing del Toro’s notebooks, collections and film art into museum galleries, we acknowledge the curatorial aspects of his approach to filmmaking,” said Britt Salvesen, curator and department head of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department and the Prints and Drawings department at LACMA. “On one level, he carefully constructs and stages his films in the manner of an exhibition. On another level, he fills their plots with commentaries about the social, psychological and spiritual power of objects.”

“Guillermo del Toro” is organized into eight thematic sections. The exhibition begins with “Childhood and Innocence,” exploring the central role children play in many of del Toro’s films. The next gallery, “Victoriana,” immerses visitors in the Romantic, Victorian, and Edwardian ages, eras that resonate in much of del Toro’s work.

The new exhibition also explores del Toro’s interest in puzzles and quests for forbidden knowledge with “Magic, Alchemy, and the Occult.” After that, visitors delve into del Toro’s obsession with cinema, from B-movies to horror films, and his voracious appetite for comic books in “Movies, Comics, Pop Culture.”

The gallery, “Frankenstein and Horror,” reveals del Toro’s lifelong love affair with the tale of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, a story he first enjoyed as a child, via James Whale’s 1931 film, and later again as a teenager, when he read Mary Shelley’s famous novel, “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.” The filmmaker’s fascination with monsters of all types is further showcased in “Freaks and Monsters,” in which visitors can examine del Toro’s journals to see how he develops his creatures.

And for the finale, the exhibition concludes with “Death and the Afterlife,” a gallery that probes the pursuit of immortality.

“Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters” runs through November 27. LACMA is located on 5905 Wilshire Boulevard. For tickets and information, call (323)857-6000 or visit www.lacma.org.