FRONTIER SPIRIT: Paul R. Williams in California and Nevada | Photographs by Janna Ireland

Home in Seaview Community, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, 2018. Photo by Janna Ireland.

From 2016 to 2022, award-winning photographer Janna Ireland captured the built works of Paul Revere Williams (1894–1980), the first Black architect licensed in the western region of the United States and the first Black member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). At his Los Angeles-based office, Williams worked on architectural projects spanning in scope and scale—from civic buildings to private residences, mausoleums to motels—demonstrating his expansive breadth of architecture knowledge that includes spatial logic and visual character. His most defining architectural quality is his dexterity as a designer, which Ireland documents through her lens and signature black-and-white photography, submerging viewers into Williams’ notable spaces. As a result, light and shadow are considered alongside contemplations of material and detail, revealing the multifaceted nature of these two authors.

Presented together for the first time, Frontier Spirit pulls from Ireland’s two photographic projects on Williams’ designs. The first project (2016 to 2020) captured a variety of Williams’ buildings in situ in Southern California, culminating in Ireland’s 2020 monograph Regarding Paul R. Williams: A Photographer’s View, a glimpse into a fraction of his many thousands of designs. Commissioned by the Nevada Museum of Art, the second project (2021 to 2022) led Ireland to capture Williams’ lesser-known works in Nevada, including Berkley Square—Southern Nevada’s first African American suburban community. The selections from these two collections demonstrate and reflect Williams’ divergent oeuvre in both California and Nevada and his legacy of resilience that continues today.

Janna Ireland lives in Los Angeles, where she is an assistant professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Occidental College. Her photographic work is primarily concerned with the themes of family and domestic life, the built environment, and interactions between humans and the natural world. Concurrent with Frontier Spirit: Paul R. Williams in California and Nevada, Ireland has 21 photographs on view as part of the Hollyhock House’s centennial; Janna Ireland: Even by Proxy (January 16–September 27, 2025) offers new perspectives and makes visible the sustained care and conservation of Los Angeles’ only World Heritage site. Among her recent accolades, she is the 2024 recipient of the Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award, the recipient of the 2023 Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation Art Prize, a 2023 City of Los Angeles Independent Master Artist Program (COLA-IMAP) grant, and is a 2024 runner-up for the Aperture Portfolio Prize.

Thanks to dean Mónica Ponce de León, Courtney Coffman, Kira McDonald, and the School of Architecture Staff
Graphic Design by Noah Beckwith
All photos © Janna Ireland