Katharina Denzinger (born October 12, 1930, Berlin, Germany - died April 2, 2019, New York, New York) was a German-born American fashion illustrator and designer, fine artist, and teacher. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in theater costume design as well as a postgraduate certificate (Meisterschüler) from the Hochschüle für bildende Künste in Berlin. In the 1950s, she worked as a fashion model for the German fashion house Lindenstaedt und Brettschneider, where she later became an assistant fashion designer.

In 1962, Denzinger came to New York City to pursue a career in fashion, and by 1965 was working as an editorial illustrator at the magazine Harper’s Bazaar under art director Marvin Israel, who was also on the faculty of Parsons School of Design in the 1960s, and then under Parsons alumna Bea Feitler, who succeeded Israel in 1963 as co-art director with Ruth Ansel. Denzinger’s assignment at Harper’s for a fashion editorial entitled, “Chic Proportions ‘65,” featured Denzinger’s drawings of Donyale Luna, whose cover image for the issue marked the first time an African-American model appeared on the cover of an American fashion magazine. Denzinger also worked with Bea Feitler

In 1966, Denzinger joined the faculty of Parsons School of Design (which became a division of The New School in 1970), teaching fashion illustration. She began teaching in Parsons’s Evening Division (now, Continuing Education) as well in the 1970s, continuing her career as Parsons faculty until 2005. Denzinger initially taught the course Fashion Illustration and Layout at Parsons, and by 1975 she was also teaching Life Drawing at the school.6 She received an award for distinguished excellence in teaching from New School University in 1992.

Denzinger continued her career as a freelance editorial illustrator with published work in The New York Times, Vogue, Ms., Mademoiselle, Glamour, Esquire, and others. By the 1980s, Denzinger had shifted her focus toward fine art, as a painter and collagist, and held residencies at art colonies such as Virginia Center for Creative Arts in Amherst, Virginia, Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York, and MacDowell in Peterborough, New Hampshire. She also exhibited her work at galleries and museums in New York and Berlin.

References

Course Catalogs. “Parsons School of Design.” Parsons School of Design Course Catalog Collection. 1960-2002. The New School Archives Digital Collections, New York, New York.

“Katharina Denzinger.” MacDowell.org. Accessed July 14, 2022. https://www.macdowell.org/artists/katharina-denzinger.

“Katharina Denzinger.” New York Times, April 5, 2019. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/katharina-denzinger-obituary?id=15417876,

“Katharina Denzinger: Biography.” Ka-denz.com. Last modified May 5, 2015. Accessed July 14, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20150816060010/http://ka-denz.com/bio.html.

MacDonald, Devorah. “Fashion Architecture: Chic Proportions ‘65.” Devodotcom, April 18, 2012. http://devorahmacdonald.blogspot.com/2012/04/fashion-architecture-chic-proportions.html.

Powell, Richard J. Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. https://books.google.com/books?id=qtu2dXgubjMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.