Blueprints for the Stars, LACMA and the Getty Will Open Paul R. Williams Exhibitions
The architect behind homes for Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball gets a three-museum tribute, with LACMA opening its show November 15.
Drive through Los Angeles long enough and you will pass a Paul R. Williams building, whether it is the Beverly Hills Hotel addition, Second Baptist Church or First African Methodist Episcopal Church. This fall and winter, three of the city’s art institutions are turning his archive into a coordinated run of exhibitions, and two of them are still to come.
Williams was born in 1894, was orphaned at 4 and earned his USC degree in 1919. He became the first Black architect licensed west of the Mississippi and the first Black member of the American Institute of Architects, and in 2017 he became the first Black architect awarded the AIA Gold Medal, its highest honor. Over nearly six decades he designed more than 3,000 projects before his death in 1980.
Hollywood knew him well. He designed homes for Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball, along with the Palm Springs house Ball shared with Desi Arnaz. “While internationally celebrated for designing luxury homes for Hollywood celebrities and prominent clients, Williams was equally committed to designing homes for Black families and collaborating with Black developers to expand access to quality housing,” said Andrew Perchuk, interim director of the Getty Research Institute.
His archive was long believed to have been destroyed in a fire. His family preserved it, and in 2020 the USC School of Architecture and the Getty Research Institute acquired it together.
The USC Fisher Museum of Art opened the first show in August. Paul R. Williams, An Architect Considered looks at 35 of his housing projects alongside seven new commissions by artists and architects including Edgar Arceneaux, David Hartt and Amanda Williams. It runs through March 13, 2027.
LACMA follows on November 15 with Paul R. Williams, Architect for Living, showing drawings and photographs from the archive that have never been exhibited. On December 15 the Getty plans to open Paul R. Williams, Architecture Across the Color Line, the public debut of the archive, with drawings of Williams’ own home and office. Velvet also covered LACMA’s Brockman Gallery exhibition.
“Few architects are as deeply woven into the fabric of Los Angeles as Paul Revere Williams,” said Bethany Montagano, director of USC Museums.
