Kenneth Paul Block (1924-2009) graduated from New York's Parsons School of Design in 1945 and earned recognition as one of the most distinctive American fashion illustrators of the second half of the 20th century. As the in-house artist for Fairchild Publications he produced illustrations for industry staple Women's Wear Daily, and its sister publication, W Magazine, distilling the essence of American fashion and style over four decades, most notably during the 1960s and 1970s. In addition to these regular commissions for Women's Wear Daily and W Magazine, recording the collections of leading New York designers such as Halston, Geoffrey Beene, Perry Ellis and Bill Blass, Block also produced illustrations for New York department stores such as Bonwit Teller, Lord & Taylor and Bergdorf-Goodman. He even collaborated with legendary fashion journalist Diana Vreeland, creating posters for her exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. Block was one of the last artists to evoke the fragile elegance of early 20th century fashion illustration luminaries such as Christian Berard and René Gruau, despite the fact that his work was evolving under the constant threat of photography’s emergence as the preferred mode of representation for editors and advertisers alike. He was finally released from Fairchild Publications in 1992, in line with widespread redundancies at other publishers, although he continued to receive commissions from designers and department stores.