Memphis artist Sophie Coors , who began painting professionally in 1970 and became one of the city's most commercially successful artists, died Wednesday at her retreat in Moon Lake, Miss. Mrs. Coors, 69, had battled Parkinson's disease for six years, using a combination of standard drug therapy and holistic medicine, with her approach often involving the same deep love of nature that characterized her art. She died of a heart attack on the screened-in front porch where she did most of her paintings, said her son, Giles Coors III. The porch, in a retreat that had been in the family for many years, allowed her to be part of nature, and nature was one of the most frequent themes in her large body of work. "Trees were her love, with 80 to 90 percent of her pictures with trees in them somewhere," said her son. Her last exhibition, mostly oil on canvas, was at Memphis Botanic Garden. The art often had what he calls a "fantasy" quality. Mrs. Coors once said she did not like to put her art into a single category, but that others often mentioned a "primitive" quality. She said her "buildings were not quite plumb," and lighting and colors suited her own tastes and sensibilities. Mrs. Coors, born in Houston, moved to Memphis with her family as a child and was enrolled at the old Memphis Art Academy's Saturday School at age 6 or 7. She majored in art at Mount Vernon College in Washington and studied at Memphis College of Art under such widely known artists as Fred Burton, Dorothy Sturm, Veda Reed and Burton Callicott. Callicott said Thursday Mrs. Coors "was very dedicated. She wasn't just a society girl playing around with art." One of her closest friends, Jan Bell, said she and Mrs. Coors recently visited Cape Cod where Mrs. Coors took photographs intending to paint what she had seen. "She was living very fully right up to the end. She had a spirit that touched everybody. She looked at life in a magical way, and some of that shows in her paintings." Her daughter, Mignon Coors Canale, said her mother was "very free spirited," but was devoted to several causes, especially children with cystic fibrosis. Her middle child, George Coors, died in 1985 of the disease, and Mrs. Coors often worked as a volunteer with other children with cystic fibrosis. Memorials should be sent to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation or the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, said her son. She also leaves her husband, Giles Coors Jr., a brother, Ed Woodson of Destin, Fla., and four grandchildren. Services will be at 3 p.m. Saturday at Independent Presbyterian Church with burial in Memorial Park. Canale Funeral Directors has charge. (Obituary published in The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, TN, on October24, 2003)