The American Academy of Arts and Letters

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Entrance to the campus which the academy shares with the Hispanic Society of America.
Entrance to the campus which the academy shares with the Hispanic Society of America.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 250-member organization whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. It is located in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, in New York, on a Beaux Arts campus that is shares with the Hispanic Society of America on Audubon Terrace, at Broadway and West 155th Street. The Academy's galleries are open to the public for two exhibitions a year.

The Academy was founded in 1904 by seven members of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in emulation of the French Academy. An amalgam of the two groups called the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters appeared in 1976, and lasted into 1992, then the current title was adopted. The first seven members were William Dean Howells, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Edmund Clarence Stedman, John La Farge, Mark Twain, John Hay, and Edward MacDowell.

The former title reflected the two-tiered system of the Academy and Institute. There were 250 members in the Institute, selected from among the leading figures in American art and literature, and these members elected 50 members to form the Academy. This two-tiered system was abandoned in 1993, and today, all 250 members have equal standing.

In 1924, some of the members of the Academy were:

Members of the Academy are chosen for life and have included some of the leading figures in the American art scene. They are organized into committees that award annual prizes to help up-and-coming artists achieve their potential.


Contents

[edit] A history of events

The oldest organization that may be associated with the group was founded in 1865 at Boston. The American Social Science Association produced the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1898. The qualification for membership in this body was to be a notable achievement in art, music, or literature. The membership was at first limited to 150 but was later increased in 1904 by introducing a two-tiered structure that was to be composed of 50 elite members and 200 others. The people in the elite group were gradually elected over the next five years or more by adding a small number each year. The larger group was called the "Institute," while the elite group was called the "Academy."

The strict two-tiered system persisted for 72 years (1904-76). A new development appeared in 1976 with the creation of an organization called the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. The combined Academy/Institute structure had a maximum of 250 living United States citizens as members, plus up to 75 foreign composers, artists, and writers as honorary members. It also established the annual Witter Bynner Poetry Prize in 1980 to support the work of a young poet.

The two-tiered system persisted until 1993 when it was completely abandoned.

[edit] Members

[edit] Gold medal for poetry

Every six years, the academy awards the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Poetry to honor the distinguished career of a poet. The medal is the academy's highest honor.

Past recipients:

[edit] Awards

The academy gives out numerous awards, with recipients chosen by committees made up of Academy members. Candidates for all awards must be nominated by Academy members, except for the Richard Rodgers awards, for which an application may be submitted.

  • Academy Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters — In 1941 the Academy established awards to encourage creative work in the arts. Now $7500 each, Academy Awards are given annually: five to artists, eight to writers, four to composers, and three to architects.
  • Marc Blitzstein Award — The $5,000 award is given periodically to a composer, lyricist, or librettist, "to encourage the creation of works of merit for musical theater and opera". The award was established in 1965 by the friends of Marc Blitzstein, an Academy member.
  • Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize — The annual prize of $5,000 goes to an architect of any nationality who has "made a contribution to architecture as an art".
  • Benjamin H. Danks Award — The $20,000 award is given in rotation to a composer of ensemble works, a playwright, and a writer (fiction, non-fiction, poetry). Since 2002 the Academy has administered the prize established by Roy Lyndon Danks in honor of his father, Benjamin Hadley Danks.
  • Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts — The award, a certificate, and $1,000 goes to a United States resident who has "rendered notable service to the arts".
  • Jimmy Ernst Award — The Jimmy Ernst Award of $5,000 is given to a painter or sculptor "whose lifetime contribution to his or her vision has been both consistent and dedicated".
  • E. M. Forster Award — E.M. Forster, a foreign honorary member of the Academy, bequeathed the U.S. royalties of his posthumous novel Maurice to Christopher Isherwood, who transferred them to the Academy to establish this $15,000 award, which is given to a young English writer for an extended visit to the United States.
  • American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medals — Each year the Academy awards Gold Medals for distinguished achievement in two categories in rotation:
    • Belles Lettres and Criticism, and Painting;
    • Biography and Music;
    • Fiction and Sculpture;
    • History and Architecture, including Landscape Architecture;
    • Poetry and Music;
    • Drama and Graphic Art.
The Gold Medal is given for the entire work of the recipient.
  • Walter Hinrichsen Award — The Walter Hinrichsen Award is given for the publication of "a work by a mid-career American composer."
  • William Dean Howells Medal — This award is given once every five years in recognition of the most distinguished American novel published during that period. It was established in 1925.
  • The Charles Ives Awards — Six scholarships of $7500 and two fellowships of $15,000 are now given annually to young composers. In 1998, the Academy established the Charles Ives Living, an award of $75,000 a year for a period of three years given to an American composer. The award's purpose is to free "a promising talent from the need to devote his or her time to any employment other than music composition" during that period.
  • Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond Award — an annual award of $5,000 "given either to a composition student or an experienced composer".
  • Goddard Lieberson Fellowships — Two Goddard Lieberson Fellowships of $15,000 are given annually to young composers of extraordinary gifts. The CBS Foundation endowed the fellowships in memory of the late president of CBS Records.
  • American Academy of Arts and Letters Award of Merit — The Award of Merit, a medal and $10,000, is given each year, in rotation, to an outstanding person in America representing one of the following arts: Painting, the Short Story, Sculpture, the Novel, Poetry, and Drama.
  • Metcalf Awards — In 1986, the Academy received a bequest from Addison M. Metcalf, son of the late member Willard L. Metcalf, for two awards to honor young writers and artists of great promise. The Willard L. Metcalf Award in Art and the Addison M. Metcalf Award in Literature are biennial awards of $10,000.
  • Katherine Anne Porter Award — This biennial award of $20,000 goes to a prose writer who has demonstrated achievements and dedication to the literary profession.
  • Arthur Rense Prize — In 1998, the $20,000 award was established to honor "an exceptional poet" once every third year.
  • Richard Rodgers Awards for Musical Theater — These awards subsidize full productions, studio productions, and staged readings of musicals put on by nonprofit theaters in New York City. The plays are by composers and writers not already established in this field. These are the only awards for which the Academy accepts applications.
  • Rome Fellowship in Literature — Every year the Academy selects and partly subsidizes two young writers for a one-year residence at the American Academy in Rome.
  • Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Awards — Each of these two awards are for $5,000. The first, established in 1956, is for a fiction work of "considerable literary achievement" published in the previous year. The second, created in 1959, is for a young painter "who has not yet been accorded due recognition".
  • Medal for Spoken Language — This medal, awarded from time to time, recognizes individuals who set a standard of excellence in the use of spoken language.
  • The Mildred and Harold Strauss Livings — These Livings provide an annual stipend of $50,000 a year for five years, awarded to two writers of English prose literature to enable them to devote their time exclusively to writing.
  • Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award — This $10,000 award is given each year to honor a writer of "recent prose that merits recognition for the quality of its style".
  • Morton Dauwen Zabel Award — This $10,000 biennial award is given in rotation to a poet, writer of fiction, or critic, "of progressive, original, and experimental tendencies".

[edit] External links

This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.