Paul R. Williams: Major LA Art Exhibitions Celebrate Pioneering Architect (2026-2027)
Los Angeles will celebrate the life and work of architect Paul R. Williams with a series of coordinated exhibitions opening in August 2026 at the USC Fisher Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and the Getty Research Institute. The exhibitions will run through July 2027, showcasing the prolific career of Williams, who designed over 3,000 projects and broke numerous racial barriers in the field of architecture.
Williams was the first African American architect licensed west of the Mississippi, the first Black member of the American Institute of Architects, and, in 2017, the first Black architect to receive the AIA’s Gold Medal. His designs spanned residential, civic, commercial, religious, and hospitality projects, including the Beverly Hills Hotel and homes for celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball, according to announcements from USC Today and NBC Los Angeles.
The exhibitions will draw from the Paul R. Williams Archive, jointly acquired in 2020 by the Getty Research Institute and the USC School of Architecture. The archive contains architectural drawings, photographs, plans, and memorabilia, much of which will be displayed publicly for the first time. The institutions aim to reveal Williams’s contributions to both modern architecture and social justice.
At the USC Fisher Museum of Art, “Paul R. Williams: An Architect Considered” will examine his work on multifamily housing, pairing archival drawings with new commissions from contemporary artists Edgar Arceneaux, Current Interests (Matthew Au and Mira Henry), enFOLD Collective (Dana McKinney White and Megan Echols), Darell W. Fields, David Hartt, Cory Henry, and Amanda Williams. The exhibition, organized jointly by the USC School of Architecture and the USC Fisher Museum of Art, will highlight 35 housing projects from Williams’s career and is supported by funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It will run from August 18, 2026, to March 13, 2027.
LACMA’s exhibition, “Paul R. Williams: Architect for Living,” opening November 15, 2026, and running through May 23, 2027, will showcase previously unseen drawings and photographs from the archive, demonstrating the breadth of Williams’s work during Los Angeles’s rapid growth from the 1920s through the early 1970s.
The Getty Research Institute will present “Paul R. Williams: Architecture Across the Color Line,” opening December 15, 2026, and continuing through July 18, 2027. This exhibition will focus on Williams’s impact on challenging racial exclusion and his work within and for Black communities in Los Angeles, including the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, Second Baptist Church, and the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company. The exhibition will mark the public debut of the Paul R. Williams Archive.
The three institutions will accompany the exhibitions with a scholarly catalogue and public programs, further exploring Williams’s career and influence. Williams also served on Los Angeles’s City Planning Commission, the California State Redevelopment Agency, and the Federal Advisory Committee on Government Housing Policies and Programs, and received the NAACP Spingarn Medal and honorary doctorates from Howard University and Tuskegee Institute.