Longtime WWD and W magazine illustrator Kenneth Paul Block, 84, a champion of the art of fashion illustration, died Thursday at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York.
The cause of death was complications from a fall he suffered earlier in the week, according to his nephew, Steven.
Men wore fedoras and women still wore gloves when Block joined Fairchild Publications Inc. in the Fifties. And none of that dash was lost on Block, whose fondness for ascots, cigarette holders and impeccable jackets never waned, nor did what one friend described as his Dorian Gray-like youthfulness. But his studied drawings were never strictly surface, always managing to capture the gesture at hand, whether it be the swing of a skirt or the tilt of the head. “I was never only interested in the clothes. I was more interested in the women in the clothes,†he once said.
At Parsons School of Design, he was drawn to what he described as the “world of immense style,†introduced by interior designer Van Day Truex. After graduating, Block’s first job was sketching for McCall’s Patterns, a post friends said he would rather have omitted from his résumé. But Block went on to cement his presence as a leading fashion illustrator during his reign at Fairchild Publications, which lasted until the fashion illustration department was disbanded in 1992. Block’s portfolio was packed with portraits of blue bloods such as Babe Paley, the Duchess of Windsor and Jackie Kennedy, as well as commercial work for Bergdorf Goodman, Bonwit Teller and Lord & Taylor and labels such as Halston and Perry Ellis. But for Block, the end result was never just a matter of lines on a page.
“Gesture to me is everything in fashion. It is the way we stand, sit, walk and lie. It is the bone,†he once said.
To capture the body just so, he was a regular at museums, Peggy Guggenheim’s 57th Street gallery The Art of This Century, modern dance performances and the ballet. The illustrator even drew program covers for the Ballet Society, the predecessor to the New York City Ballet. His skills became so true-to-life that in the event WWD was banned from a show, as was the case with Balenciaga and a few others through the years, Block could re-create it just by listening to “Coat King†Sydney Gittler or one of his retail spy’s renditions, said Susan Mulcahy, who collaborated on his 2007 book, “Drawing Fashion: The Art of Kenneth Paul Block.†He also wasn’t above throwing in his design flourishes from time to time, she said. In 1960, when WWD had designers whip up inaugural sketches for the then-incoming First Lady Kennedy, Block offered one of his own — a velvet gown inspired by the Army surplus poncho he liked to wear.
Robert Richards, who curated “The Line of Fashion,†which features Block’s work and is on view through May 2 at the Society of Illustrators on the Upper East Side, said, “The second half of the 20th century was really defined by Kenneth. He understood sociologically the women we sketched — how they dressed, how they carried themselves, how their shoes fit. I can still envision his portraits of Babe Paley and Gloria Guinness. No photo will ever do justice to these women the way that Kenneth Paul Block did.â€
Last month, Block donated more of his drawings, 1,845 to be exact, to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Deputy director Katie Getchell said of the archives, “I was amazed by the range and quality of his work and that one person who had witnessed so much history in fashion had actually documented it all and that he wanted it to be part of a public collection made a big impression on me.â€
Block is survived by his partner of nearly 50 years, Morton Ribyat, as well as nephews and cousins. A memorial service will be planned at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to charities of the donor’s choice.
This is an edited version of an obituary that appeared in Women’s Wear Daily.
Submitted by Justine Limpus Parish
