Albert's great friend and mentor, Van Day Truex, a
president of Parsons School of Design and later Design
Director of Tiffany's, was an artist of great talent. I owned
a work by him which depicted the interior of a Venetian
palace. Albert seemed to visit my Truex, which hung
in my showroom because I felt it was a sort of design
talisman as much as a work of art, a memorial to a very
different time and place. I felt that I should give it to him:
he insisted upon buying it, which he did. It remained
a mutually appreciated aesthetic object which we had
both possessed, a common ground.
Seth Pariser, Senior Vice-President at Christopher
Hyland, Inc., believes that "our last visit together with
Albert was a porthole into his legendary career." He told
us about his inaugural visit to the White House, meeting
Jacqueline Kennedy for the first time. He was waiting
for her at the bottom of a staircase, first making eye
contact as she descended. She walked up to him and
just as he was about to introduce himself, having never
met her, she said to him, "Mr. Hadley, it is so very nice to
see you again."
To Albert, she could not have sounded more like a First
Lady. He told us that for him the encounter confirmed
an important life lesson: never let anyone have the
impression that you don't remember who they are even
if you haven't met them. Be very thoughtful.
His was the courtesy of enlightened and aesthetically
gifted kings: gentle, thoughtful, kind. H
HYLAND
