Kay Berge was born in 1914 and lived a full art-filled life for the next 100 years. Born into a line of artists, craftsmen and writers, she was the daughter of a Linotype operator/compositor for the Times Mirror in Los Angeles and a trained former actress who loved Shakespeare. In 1918, the family moved to the Mojave Desert to homestead for about 3 years. There Kay developed her love of the desert and nature. She drew in the sand with sticks and watched the horned toads and jack rabbits. She loved the ground squirrels which she called "chipmunks." In the evenings, there was "desert TV", the beautiful, colorful, ever-changing sunsets, and her mother acting out Shakespeare plays for her. When Kay started first grade in the local one-room schoolhouse, her mother came to school and made costumes for her and her friends for the school plays.

 

These beginnings of sand art, desert colors and costuming, laid the foundation for a lifetime of love of drawing, painting, fashion and nature. This love turned into a very successful career in the fashion illustration industry. She produced many spot and fashion illustrations working her way up in the fashion world. She freelanced for  department stores including but not only (in chronological order):Bullocks, Bullocks Westwood, Sears, May Co, Butler Brothers, JC Penny, The Broadway, Shannons, Harris & Frank, Golds Department Store, Bullocks Valley, Bullocks Wilshire, Montgomery Ward, Bullocks Pasadena, Que's, and Hinshaw's, where she created beautiful illustrations of women and men and specialized in children, shoes, and intricate lace, fur and patterns reproductions. Later when illustration was out and photography was in, Kay worked on staff at The Broadway specing type and designing winning layouts for the photographers. After retiring from The Broadway, Kay kept busy with freelance accounts and taught life drawing at Otis Parsons. She loved to teach and had a way of giving honest critiques without discouraging an aspiring artist. She continued to draw, paint and take classes herself well into her 90s. Over the years she also freelanced for agencies, publishers and organizations. Late in life, she illustrated a book written by her granddaughter, Melanie.

 

This website was created to honor and preserve Kay's artwork as well as that of many others. Fashion illustration for advertising is a phenomenon that died out with the advent of fashion photography. This genre is now a classic and must be preserved. The talent that went into the industry is up there with any of the world's great artists.

 

This digitized web archive is an on-going project and new items are added frequently, as they are put into a database, digitized, and the originals preserved in museum-quality sleeves and boxes.