Manet and Futurism scholar; first female full-professor in at Yale University. Coffin's parents were Francis Joseph Coffin, an Episcopal minister and Annie Coffin. She studied at Skidmore College, switching to the University of Southern California, marrying Warfield Garson in 1942 and graduating the following year with a BFA in studio art. She and Warfield began a family. After her children were born, she lectured at Wagner College, Staten Island, NY, for the academic year 1949-1950.

Art-critic and art historian, exponent of the early Italian Futurists and unofficial cultural arbiter during the early years of Italian Fascism.  Sarfatti was born Margherita Grassini. Her father was a government lawyer and businessman, Amedeo Grassini (1848-1908), and he mother Emma Levi (Grassini) (1850-1900). The young Sarfatti was privately (and secularly) tutored at home; one tutor the secretary-general of the newly founded Venice Biennale, Antonio Fradeletto (1858-1930).