The Tile Club: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting The Tile Club | Page 132

Stanford White
American, 1853–1906
On June 26, 1906, the headlines of the New York Times stunned
readers: “Thaw Murders Stanford White: Shoots Him on the
Madison Square Garden Roof.” The death of the well-known
architect caused a stir for months. Henry Kendall Thaw’s wife, the
chorus girl and model Evelyn Nesbit, was involved with White
as a teenager. Although the love affair happened years prior, Thaw
was out for revenge. On the evening of the twenty-fifth, Thaw
approached White during a performance of Mamzelle Champagne
and fired three times at point-blank range. The press had a field
day with some calling White a beast and ogre. The journalist
Richard Harding Davis came to his defense, declaring that White
was a “big-hearted, generous, gentle man.” (Davis, 157).
Born in New York in 1853, Stanford White was the son of
Richard Grant White, a Shakespearean scholar and music and
drama critic for the Morning Courier and New York Enquirer.
entered the office of Gambrill & Richardson and formed lasting Stanford White, ca. 1900, gelatin silver print, 8 2/3 x 6 1/4 in.,
New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper
Photograph Collection, Library of Congress Prints and
Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ds-10592
McKim, both of whom had studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. Garden (1890), Washington Square Arch (1892), the
Europe’s architectural gems; they would later be joined by the Library (1895), Gorham Building (1905), and the
With the advice of painter John La Farge, a friend of White’s
father, Stanford pursued a career in architecture. As a teenager, he
connections with Henry Hobson Richardson and Charles Follen
In 1878, White and McKim set sail on the Pereire to explore
sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Upon White’s return to New
York in 1879, he joined the prestigious partnership of McKim
and William Rutherford Mead under the name of McKim, Mead
and White. During the 1880s, they designed a number of homes
for wealthy residents in Newport, Rhode, Island, Greenwich,
Connecticut, and New York City. In 1884, White married Bessie
Springs Smith, a well-to-do Long Islander. In the following
decades, White worked on many significant commissions that
showcased the firm’s interest in Italian Renaissance, Moorish,
and Beaux Arts architecture. Structures include Madison Square
126 THE TILE CLUB: Camaraderie and American Plein-Air Painting
New York Herald Building (1894), the Boston Public
Tiffany and Company Building (1906).
REFERENCES:
Davis, Richard Harding. “Stanford White.” The British Architect
(August 31, 1906): 157.
Lowe, David Garrard. Stanford White’s New York. New York:
Watson-Guptill Publications, 1999.
“Murderers’ Row Gets Harry Thaw: Formally Charged with
Killing Stanford White.” New York Times, June 27, 1906, 1–2.
“Thaw Murders Stanford White: Shoots Him on the Madison
Square Garden Roof.” New York Times, June 26, 1906, 1–2.