Her presence is as quietly all-pervasive as the smell of oil paint in this temple of art, a luminous and sparely furnished SoHo loft. But if there’s a secret to her longevity at the center of her husband’s oeuvre, she’s not about to reveal it. In the 1960’s, he portrayed her as a sleekly mysterious American sphinx in sunglasses and a sweater. Garbo talked; Ada, never. Such is her deep reserve that you can spend a very pleasant hour tête-à-tête with her and still wonder if you have ever really met.
