Picture of Dory in Gray
by Susan Sandor

I brought home a large black and white photograph of a stunning, young woman with extra large glasses propped up on a casual brimmed hat upon her head. She is wearing a wool sweater, not the cashmere kind she would be seen in a few years later, and she is posed with what appears to be the family fido. Both girl and dog are staring at someone away from the camera. She was probably in her twenties when the shot was taken. A wide black frame with white matting had been ordered from a local art gallery to embrace the 14 by 19 inch image of the woman named Dory Coffee.

The portrait of Dory was discovered in her basement by friends who took care of her during her final weeks of life under hospice care at her home in Lambertville, New Jersey. She lived with great hope for a year after being diagnosed with lung cancer and was the kind of person whose beauty radiated from the inside out.

Although Dory and I had known one another for twenty something years, she never divulged her age yet readily admitted to a facelift more than once over the past few years. This was a woman who practically gave me the coat off her back. It was a cold winter’s day and I admired the soft, chunky ribbed white corduroy coat she was wearing. A few days later a package from Alexander’s of New York arrived at my door. Dory bought me the identical coat.

During my final visit with Dory I told her I would like to know more about her illustrious fashion career. Although that part of her life story came up briefly on occasion she never used those bragging rights. She was too exhausted during that visit to delve into the past and told me we could look through her scrapbook and talk about it upon my return from a trip to France. So instead I massaged her feet as she reclined in her favorite chaise then planted a goodbye kiss on her cheek.

Dory studied fashion design at Moore College of Art and partnered with a classmate to begin a custom couture clothing design firm using their combined surnames, Sibley-Coffee, Ltd. as their company name. They worked out of a shared apartment in an East Side brownstone in New York City. Their clothing was featured in Vogue and the two entrepreneurs were described as “the American designers who come closest to Coco Chanel’s fashion philosophy.” Jackie Kennedy, Julie Christie, and Faye Dunaway were among their first clients. Soon after, they began selling to high fashion retailers including Bonwit Teller, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, and Giorgio Beverly Hills. Their successful wholesale business grew and they moved their work to a showroom just off Fifth Avenue. They also designed clothing worn by Lauren Hutton for Revlon ads, which is how many women discovered their goods. I did get to look through Dory’s scrapbook eventually, but we never did have the conversation we planned. She died within a week of my absence.

Dory was first and foremost a skilled painter who continued to paint until her death in May. When her energy level was elevated in February, I commissioned a painting of my sister’s beloved Akita named Khyber as a gift that will be presented to her at Christmas. I watched the work in progress on Dory’s easel as the dog astonishingly came to life.

Her works continue to be exhibited in galleries as they have been since 1966. Her sophisticated, small scale, decorative paintings are irresistibly charming and executed with much élan. Floral and fruit still lives, animals, landscapes, and seascapes, were part her amazing oeuvre. Tiffany displayed her art in the windows of its store in Palm Beach, and in 1995 she became the first American artist to show her work at the Eden Rock Pavilion of Hotel du Cap d’Antibes as well as La Reserve de Beaulieu Hotel on the French Riviera. Her paintings are in the collections of luminaries including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Danielle Steel, Bill Blass, Terrence McNally, and Hal Prince to name a few. Her works of art, which are simply, signed Dory, are available locally at the Lambertville Gallery of Fine Art.

Dory Coffee willed her worldly possession to nearly 50 friends, most of whom never had a notion of receiving such fortune. Me, I have that photograph. And unlike Dorian Gray, the character in Oscar’s Wilde’s novel, my picture of Dory in gray will hang forever unchanged where I may gaze upon her face for life’s inspirations.