Bernard Phillip Blake was born on April 25, 1919 in Baltimore, Maryland, moving to San Francisco, California after WWII. He had a career in advertising and commercial art and was a photographer, specializing in close up photography as a fine art. He did work for the Sierra Club and other magazines. He studied art at Arts and Crafts in Oakland, taking drawing and photography classes.

In 1971 Bernie semi-retired from commercial art and begin working with color screen-printing, using photography as the basis for his imagery. In the mid 1970s he moved to Santa Rosa, California and then built a home and studio outside Sebastopol. Bernard showed his work with The Annex Galleries, Santa Rosa, CA; ADI Gallery, San Francisco, CA, and other Bay Area venues.

Bernard Blake died due to complications of Parkinson’s Disease on October 23, 1995 in Sebastopol, California.