Block, Kenneth Paul

85 pen-and-ink, marker, crayon, gouache, and watercolor drawings on paper (8 in color, and 1 with touches of color), ranging in size from 16 x 4.75 in. to 23 x 18 in., some being simple line sketches, others being highly detailed, and captioned and marked-up for publication. 

A delightful collection of illustrations from the early 1980s, showing Block's work at its best, replete with his distinctive long, elegant, lines and his signature blend of illustration and portraiture. The archive includes designs done for St. John, Calvin Klein, Oscar de la Renta, Vittadini, DKNY, Anne Klein, Pauline Trigère, Gavioti, Claiborne, E. Picone, Ralph Lauren, and others, with designs for evening wear, intimates, accessories, and more. Block is considered by many to have been the most important fashion illustrator of the latter half of the twentieth century, with a career that spanned from the 1950s through 1990s, being the leading illustrator for Women's Wear Daily and its offshoot W. His work was the subject of a retrospective at the Museum of American Illustration in 1999, and more recently shown in an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.