Dorsey is best know for his coastal and pastoral landscapes of the central coastal region of California, although he had a varied and colorful career in Alaska before settling in Ojai, California.

His father’s father was Herbert Dorsey, Sr., the physicist and noted inventor, and his mother’s father was diplomat Joseph Ballantine. His love of adventure was inspired by his father, Herbert Dorsey, Jr. who traveled with Byrd to the Arctic and was the first American to dog sled over the Greenland icecap in the 1940's. His love of Alaska in particular was fostered by his father being stationed there by the Air Force from 1949-1951.

In 1960, he graduated from the Famous Art Course, Westport, Connecticut. The next year found him flying a Piper Cub from California to Alaska. By 1964, he was in Alaska mapping the Copper River Delta for the Department of Fish & Game. During this period of his life, he tagged fish in the wilderness areas and extensively painted Alaska, homesteading in Tutka Bay.

Today he is a resident of Ojai (on property in the family for over 4 decades) and Red Mountain via Homer, Alaska.