Morton Ribyat (February 13, 1922 - March 13, 2016) was an artist and textile designer.
Kenneth Paul Block and Morton Ribyat were a couple of American collectors
who spent more than sixty years of their lives together. Partner Kenneth Paul Block
Queer Places:
1207 West St, Utica, NY 13501
140 Riverside Dr, New York, NY 10024
Morton Ribyat (February 13, 1922 - March 13, 2016) was an artist and textile designer.
Kenneth Paul Block and Morton Ribyat were a couple of American collectors
who spent more than sixty years of their lives together.
Born in Syracuse, NY in 1922, to Issac and Sarah Ribyat, Morton was raised in Utica. He graduated cum laude from Syracuse University in 1948 after serving in the U.S. Army. A successful fabric designer with such firms as M. Lowenstein and Cohn-Hall-Marx, Morton lived for many years on the Upper West Side with his partner, fashion artist, Kenneth Paul Block, who died in 2009. Morton's design archive is part of the collections of the MFA in Boston.
Ribyat and Block owned Portrait de Guido Sommi by Tamara de Lempicka. One can see how such a dashing portrait would appeal to Morton Ribyat and Kenneth Paul Block, the man known as “the last great fashion illustrator” (Vanity Fair, April 2009). Block brought the runway to the post-war elite through his elegant sketches of each season’s couture shows. His subjects ranged from Jacqueline Kennedy to Babe Paley, showcasing a modern version of the glamorous lifestyle shared by de Lempicka and Sommi.
He died at his home in Manhattan on March 13, 2016.
TAMARA DE LEMPICKA, PORTRAIT DE GUIDO SOMMI, 1925. ESTIMATE $4,000,000–6,000,000.
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