Suzanne Hinman holds a Ph.D. in American art history and has been a curator, gallerist, museum director, professor, and an art model. She owned an art gallery in Santa Fe and then served as director of galleries at the Savannah College of Art and Design, the world’s largest art school. Her interest in the artists and architects of the American Gilded Age and the famed Cornish Art Colony in New Hampshire grew while associate director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. The author continues to reside near Cornish as an independent scholar. Q&A What inspired you to write about the lives and achievements of architect Stanford White and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens? It is so difficult to recall exactly, as I began more than 12 years ago, largely inspired, I would have to say, by the beauty of their creations, separately, and then even more so together. I had always loved the Italian-inspired architecture of McKim, Mead, and White, whether in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C. or anywhere else I could find it. I was also intrigued by the life of Stanford White, the most exuberant, amazing, creative of the three partners. When I first moved to New Hampshire, I visited the town of Cornish and discovered the incredibly beautiful work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, set at Aspet, his home that sparked the beginning of the Cornish Art Colony and is now a National Historic Site. And when I discovered that these two men not just knew each other but were dearest friends who often collaborated together, it was even better. I probably first discovered the Diana sculpture that topped the tower of Madison Square Garden while visiting the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where in a half-size version she welcomes visitors to the grand courtyard of the American Wing. It took a few years before I was able to see the actual surviving 1893 version Diana, reigning over the Great Stair Balcony at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and that was an amazing moment. Which part of researching for the Grandest Madison Square Garden was the most personally interesting to you? I truly loved it all. Of course, visiting archives that held the letters and notes actually written by my two key players, architect Stanford White and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, was definitely an incredible experience–touching (in gloves) the pieces of paper, holding them in my hands, studying the signatures, the extra bits written in the margins, and all the wonderful information they revealed. Among the most important collections were the Avery Architectural and Fine Art Library at Columbia and the New York Historical Society for the papers of Stanford White and the McKim, Mead & White firm. For Augustus Saint-Gaudens, it was the Saint-Gaudens Papers at Rauner Special Collections, Baker Library, at Dartmouth College. The second major source of research information was the newspapers of the day, and that was quite exciting also, finding contemporary accounts written the very day, filled with so much information, much of which had not been seen or noted for more than a hundred years. I loved the detective work, stumbling on amazing new bits as I searched newspapers archives now so accessible online. The discoveries I made, including a long-forgotten scandal regarding Saint-Gaudens and his nude models and a new theory regarding the crime-of-the-century murder of White at the Garden were quite exciting!