Lebanon, NH – Suzanne Hinman passed away at home on Thursday, September 24, 2026, after living with cancer for several years. Suzanne was born on October 9, 1947, in Hollywood, California, to Irving and Jean (Newman) Gandel. Suzanne grew up in West Los Angeles, where she attended Morningside High School and won the Best Actress of the Year award.
Realizing that theater and following her mother’s path was not her future, Suzanne earned her BA in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles, with honors and a Phi Beta Kappa key, an MA in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in art history from the University of New Mexico. As an undergraduate, she specialized in Asian art, following an early passion for Japanese art and culture and spending a semester abroad in Tokyo. She was named the Freer Fellow in Japanese Art at the University of Michigan.
While married to her first husband, an Air Force pilot whom she met as a freshman in college, Suzanne lived and worked in a variety of places, from Austin, Texas, to San Francisco, where she coordinated fashion shows for Saks Fifth Avenue.
In her later professional life, Suzanne was a professor of art history and a museum curator and director, with positions including Curator at the Southwest Museum, Photography Curator for the Charles Eames Studio, and Director of the Fowler Museum, all in Southern California; Associate Director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College; and Director of Galleries at the Savannah College of Art and Design, during which time she curated exhibitions and came to know as friends a variety of American artists, including Helen Frankenthaler and Judy Chicago.
In 1993, she met her second husband, Jeffrey Hazen Hinman, while waiting for a very long traffic light on Main Street, in Hanover. Every year on the anniversary of that date, she and Jeff would meet up at the spot in front of the Hanover post office, then walk to the Hanover Inn, where they had their first lunch. They spent many happy years together living on Mascoma Lake’s Crescent Beach.
Suzanne published many articles and scholarly papers on late-19th-century American art and French and American art nouveau, as well as the book The Grandest Madison Square Garden, Art Scandal & Architecture in Gilded Age New York, published by Syracuse University Press, which won the 2020 Victorian Society in America Book Award.
In her retirement, Suzanne managed the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen Gallery in Hanover, which allowed her to appreciate and collect the work of so many regional artists. She was very interested in historic preservation, particularly within her town of Enfield, serving on the Enfield Heritage Commission for a number of years and writing a walking tour brochure of the historic downtown.
Suzanne lived for beauty, figuring truth could take care of itself. Her grand passion was the culture of Italy-its art, music, cuisine (gelato), and language-having traveled there 14 times. She loved studying and speaking Italian, and founded Il Circolo Italiano, which met every Saturday morning to chat.
She was often told by friends that she led a fascinating life. From living with the M?ori in New Zealand, to owning an art gallery in Santa Fe, and modeling for several well known artists. She greatly appreciated all the arts, crafts, and lovely gardens, though she professed to have no talent for any of it herself.
Suzanne happily knit and crocheted blankets for cats at the Enfield Upper Valley Humane Society and enjoyed waving pom poms to support runners in the Shaker 7. A nearly lifelong vegetarian, she practiced yoga and mindfulness meditation with the Heart of the Valley Mindfulness Center, always with the intention of “survival with grace,” which became an aspirational theme for her life. She left us with these words: “I think beauty can be a wonderful balm for us in trying times.”
Suzanne is survived by her husband Jeffrey Hinman, sister Judith Gandel-Golden (Joseph Golden (d. 2012)), stepchildren Jessie Hinman-Maher (Michael Maher) and Jacob Hinman (Laurel Durham), nieces Claire Golden (Seth Pomerantz) and Alexandra Golden (Nicholas Bath), as well as beloved grandchildren, grandnieces, and grandnephews.
Heartfelt gratitude to Edith Araya Salas and the nurses at Dartmouth Health Home Care for their devoted care at the end of Suzanne’s life. Donations suggested to the Enfield Upper Valley Humane Society.
An online guest book is available to leave a message of condolence Suzanne’s family by visiting www.rickerfuneralhome.com.
Click here to sign the guest book or honor their memory with flowers, donations, or other heartfelt tributes