https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/los-angeles-in-black-and-white/

A huge monograph on Los Angeles artist Paul Landacre reveals another potent noir precursor who is most worthy of note.

From the review by Victoria Dailey...

Although the Hollywood dream factory and the myth of sunshine and palm trees have come to symbolize Los Angeles, the city contains other realms obscured by these potent symbols. Landacre’s powerful images of the California landscape, the female nude, industrial objects, and natural forms were created mainly in inky black and pearly white, a surprising departure from the colorful works showing typical sunny scenes of hills, mountains, ocean, and desert by such artists as Frances Gearhart and Pedro de Lemos. Landacre’s sensibility was different--his scenes offered a starkly modern vision of sunlight and shadow, a courageous response to the mythic clichés. His work presages the bold cinematography of film noir, in which hints of the unseen lurk in the shadows, filling the landscape with a sense of mystery and foreboding.

The two-volume set from Abbeville Press is not cheap, but its labor-of-love level of detail is palpable on every page.