American Academy of Arts and Letters
From Philosopedia
- 2004 Ceremonial Stage Photo - Photo by Henry Groskinsky
- 2007 Ceremonial Stage Photo - Photo by Charlie Samuels
THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS, founded in 1898 as the National Institute of Arts and Letters and limited to 250 members, was an offspring of the American Social Science Association. The original members, chosen by a committee of the Association, included such creative humanists as Henry Adams, Daniel Chester French, Childe Hassam, William Dean Howells, William and Henry James, John La Farge, Edward MacDowell, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Mark Twain, and two future presidents—Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
Upon the death of a member, the remaining members choose a replacement. In 1904 the American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded as an inner body of the Institute, with membership limited to fifty persons chosen for special distinction from the membership of the Institute. The first seven chosen were William Dean Howells, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Edmund Clarence Stedman, John La Farge, Mark Twain, John Hay, and Edward MacDowell. Henry James was the first of the eight to be selected by this initial group.
The Institute was incorporated by an Act of Congress signed by President Taft in 1913, and the Academy was similarly incorporated in 1916 under President Wilson. In 1923 a joint headquarters was established at 633 West 155th Street in New York City in a new building donated by Archer Milton Huntington. (Ezra Pound, who was inducted in 1938, once referred to the Institute in a 1950 letter to William Carlos Williams as “the Institute of Farts and Stutters.”)
In 1976, after seventy-two years of separate though related existence, the two groups voted for a merger that made them one institution with a single Board of Directors. In 1992 the Institute dissolved and united into a single body of 250 members, which began 1993 as the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The Academy also elects seventy-five distinguished foreign artists, writers, and composers as Honorary Members. Other nations have a national academy. For example, the French Academy [[1]] dates to the 1630s and has a fixed membership of forty. The Spanish Academy was founded in 1713 [[2]]. The British Academy of around 750 members was established by Royal Charter in 1902 [[3]].
Contents |
MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY and year of their election
DEPARTMENT OF ART
- Anderson, Lennart 1977
- Artschwager, Richard 2002
- Bailey, William 1986
- Baldessari, John 2008
- Barnet, Will 1982
- Bartlett, Jennifer 2003
- Boghosian, Varujan
- Bloom, Hyman 1974
- Boghosian, Varujan 1986
- Bontecou, Lee 2004
- Celmins, Vija 1996
- Chamberlain, John 1990
- Christo, 1989
- Close, Chuck 1992
- Cobb, Henry N. 1980
- Dine, Jim 1980
- DiSuvero, Mark 1986
- Dodd, Lois 1998
- Downes, Rackstraw 1999
- Eisenman, Peter 2001
- Escobar, Marisol 1978
- Fischl, Eric 2006
- Frank, Mary 1984
- Frankenthaler, Helen 1974
- Freilicher, Jane 1989
- Gehry, Frank O. 1987
- Giurgola, Romaldo 1977
- Graves, Michael 1991
- Grooms, Red 2000
- Hardy, Hugh 1993
- Holl, Steven 2000
- Hunt, Richard 1998
- Irwin, Robert 2007
- Jacquette, Yvonne 2003
- Johansen, John M. 1979
- Johns, Jasper 1973
- Johnson, Lester 2004
- Katz, Alex 1988
- Kelly, Ellsworth 1974
- King, William 2003
- Leslie, Alfred 2006
- Lin, Maya 2005
- Mangold, Robert 2001
- Mangold, Sylvia Plimack 2011
- Marden, Brice 1998
- Mayne, Thom 2010
- Meier, Richard 1983
- Morley, Malcolm 2011
- Murphy, Catherine 2002
- Nauman, Bruce 2001
- Nozkowski, Thomas 2010
- Oldenburg, Claes 1975
- Olin, Laurie 2005
- Pearlstein, Philip 1982
- Pei, I.M. 1963
- Pelli, Cesar 1982
- Pfaff, Judy 2009
- Polshek, James Stewart 2005
- Puryear, Martin 1992
- Resika, Paul 1994
- Roche, Kevin 1970
- Rockburne, Dorothea 2001
- Rosenquist, James 1987
- Rothenberg, Susan 1990
- Ruscha, Edward 2001
- Ryman, Robert 1994
- Saul, Peter 2010
- Serra, Richard 1995
- Shapiro, Joel 1998
- Sherman, Cindy 2005
- Smith, Kiki 2005
- Snelson, Kenneth 1994
- Stern,Robert A. M. 2011
- Thiebaud, Wayne 1986
- Tsien, Billie 2007
- Turrell, James 2011
- Twombly, Cy 1987
- Venturi, Robert 1990
- Von Rydingsvard, Ursula 2008
- Williams, Tod 2009
- Wilson, Jane 1991
DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE
- Aaron, Daniel 1997
- Abrams, M.H. 2001
- Adler, Renata 1987
- Albee, Edward 1966
- Allende, Isabel 2004
- Appiah, Kwame Anthony 2008
- Ashbery, John 1980
- Auster, Paul 2006
- Baker, Russell 1984
- Banks, Russell 1998
- Baraka, Amiri 2001
- Barth, John 1974
- Barzun, Jacques 1952
- Beattie, Ann 1992
- Begley, Louis 2011
- Bentley, Eric 1990
- Bidart, Frank 2006
- Bloom, Harold 1990
- Bly, Robert 1987
- Boyle, T. Coraghessan 2009
- Brustein, Robert 1999
- Caro, Robert A.
- Connell, Evan S. 1988
- Coover, Robert 1987
- Cunningham,Michael 2011
- DeLillo, Don 1989
- Didion, Joan 1981
- Dillard, Annie 1999
- Doctorow, E. L. 1984
- Dove, Rita 2011
- Eisenberg, Deborah 2007
- Erdrich, Louise 1998
- Feiffer, Jules 1995
- Ferlinghetti, Lawrence 2003
- Ford, Richard 1998
- Fox, Paula 2004
- Gaines, Ernest J. 1998
- Gass, William H. 1983
- Gates, Jr., Henry Louis 1999
- Gay, Peter 1989
- Gluck, Louise 1996
- Gordon, Mary 2007
- Gray, Francine du Plessix 1992
- Greenblatt, Stephen 2008
- Guare, John 1989
- Gurganus, Allan 2007
- Gurney, A. R. 2006
- Hall, Donald 1989
- Harrison, Jim 2007
- Hass, Robert 2002
- Hazzard, Shirley 1982
- Hoagland, Edward 1982
- Hollander, John 1979
- Howard, Richard 1983
- Huxtable, Ada Louise 1977
- Irving, John 2001
- Johnson, Diane 1999
- Kaplan, Justin 1985
- Keene, Donald 1986
- Keillor, Garrison 2001
- Kennedy, William 1993
- Kincaid, Jamaica 2004
- Kinnell, Galway 1980
- Komunyakaa, Yusef 2009
- Kushner, Tony 2005
- Lee, Harper 2007
- Levine, Philip 1997
- Lurie, Alison 1989
- Malcolm, Janet 2001
- Mamet, David 1994
- Matthiessen, Peter 1974
- McClatchy, J. D. 1999
- McCullough, David 2006
- Mc Guane, Thomas 2010
- McPhee, John 1988
- Merwin, W. S. 1972
- Moore, Lorrie 2006
- Morrison, Toni 1981
- Muldoon, Paul 2008
- Murray, Albert 1997
- Oates, Joyce Carol 1978
- Ozick, Cynthia 1988
- Pinsky, Robert 1999
- Powers, Richard 2010
- Price, Reynolds 1988
- Prose, Francine 2010
- Proulx, Annie 2007
- Robinson, Marilynne 2010
- Roth, Philip 1970
- Sacks, Oliver 1996
- Russell, John 1996
- Sacks, Oliver 1996
- Salter, James 2000
- Shawn, Wallace 2006
- Shepard, Sam 1986
- Simic, Charles 1995
- Smiley, Jane 2001
- Smith, William Jay 1975
- Snyder, Gary 1987
- Spencer, Elizabeth 1985
- Stone, Robert 1994
- Strand, Mark 1981
- Tate, James 2004
- Theroux, Paul 1984
- Trillin, Calvin 2008
- Tyler, Anne 1983
- Vendler, Helen Hennessy 1993
- Vidal, Gore 1999
- Warren, Rosanna 2005
- Weaver, William 1992
- White, Edmund 1996
- Wiesel, Elie 1996
- Wilbur, Richard 1957
- Williams, C.K. 2003
- Williams, Joy 2008
- Wills, Garry 1995
- Wolfe, Tom 1999
- Wright, Charles 1995
DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC
- Adams, John 1997
- Adler, Samuel 2001
- Anderson, T.J. 2005
- Argento, Dominick 1980
- Bassett, Leslie 1981
- Beaser, Robert 2004
- Bolcom, William 1993
- Boykan, Martin 2011
- Bresnick, Martin 2006
- Carter, Elliott 1956
- Chou, Wen-chung 1982
- Coleman, Ornette 1997
- Corigliano, John 1991
- Crumb, George 1975
- Davidovsky, Mario 1982
- Del Tredici, David 1984
- Floyd, Carlisle 2001
- Foss, Lukas 1962
- Glass, Philip 2003
- Harbison, John 1992
- Hartke, Stephen 2009
- Husa, Karel 1994
- Jolas, Betsy 1983
- Kernis, Aaron Jay 2011
- Laderman, Ezra 1991
- León, Tania 2010
- Lerdahl, Fred 2010
- Lieberson, Peter 2006
- Ran, Shulamit 2003
- Rands, Bernard 2004
- Reich, Steve 1994
- Rorem, Ned 1979
- Rouse, Christopher 2002
- Rzewski, Frederic 2009
- Schuller, Gunther 1967
- Schwantner, Joseph 2002
- Sondheim, Stephen 1983
- Stucky, Steven 2007
- Thomas, Augusta Read 2009
- Thorne, Francis 1988
- Tower, Joan 1998
- Walker, George 1999
- Ward, Robert 1967
- Wilson, Olly 1995
- Wuorinen, Charles 1985
- Wyner, Yehudi 1999
- Zwilich, Ellen Taaffe 1992
AMERICAN HONORARY MEMBERS
- Allen, Woody 1987
- Brown, Trisha 1997
- Jones, Bill T. 2011
- Levine, James 2010
- Ma, Yo-Yo 2008
- Scorsese, Martin 2000
- Streep, Meryl 2010
- Taylor, Paul 1989
- Tharp, Twyla 1997
- Wilson, Robert 2000
- Wiseman, Frederick 2001
FOREIGN HONORARY MEMBERS
- Abakanowicz, Magdalena 1996
- Achebe, Chinua 1982
- Adjaye, David 2009
- Ando, Tadao 2001
- Andriessen, Louis 2008
- Bei, Dao 1996
- Birtwistle, Harrison 2007
- Bonnefoy, Yves 2001
- Boulez, Pierre 1966
- Caro, Anthony 1979
- Carson, Anne 2011
- Churchill, Caryl 2009
- Clemente, Francesco 2002
- Coetzee, J. M. 2006
- Correa, Charles 1998
- Desai, Anita 1992
- Drabble, Margaret 2002
- Dutilleux, Henri 1981
- Eco, Umberto 1999
- Foster, Norman 2005
- Freud, Lucian 1988
- Friel, Brian 1996
- Fuentes, Carlos 1985
- Fugard, Athol 1988
- Gallant, Mavis 1989
- Garcia Marquez, Gabriel 1974
- Goehr, Alexander 1989
- Gordimer, Nadine 1978
- Gubaidulina, Sofia 2005
- Gursky, Andreas 2007
- Hadid, Zaha 2000
- Havel, Vaclav 1991
- Heaney, Seamus 1993
- Henze, Hans Werner 1982
- Hockney, David 1981
- Isozaki, Arata 1998
- Jelinek, Elfriede 2011
- Kentridge, William 2011
- Kiefer, Anselm 1990
- Knussen, Oliver 1994
- Koolhaas, Rem 2000
- Kundera, Milan 1986
- Kurtág, György 2001
- Lessing, Doris 1974
- Lopez-Garcia, Antonio 2005
- Maki, Fumihiko 2010
- McEwan, Ian 2006
- Munro, Alice 1992
- Murcutt, Glenn 2008
- Naipaul, V.S. 1981
- Niemeyer, Oscar 1964
- O'Brien, Edna 1987
- Oe, Kenzaburo 1997
- Ondaatje, Michael 2000
- Pamuk, Orhan 2005
- Parra, Nicanor 2003
- Pärt, Arvo 1996
- Penderecki, Krzysztof 1998
- Polke, Sigmar 2009
- Richter, Gerhard 1998
- Rushdie, Salman 2008
- Sculthorpe, Peter 2002
- Shankar, Ravi 1974
- Siza, Alvaro 2010
- Soulages, Pierre 1979
- Soyinka, Wole 1986
- Stoppard, Tom 2000
- Szymborska, Wislawa 1999
- Trevor, William 2005
- Vargas Llosa, Mario 1986
- Voznesensky, Andrei A. 1972
- wa Thiongo, Ngugi 2003
- Walcott, Derek 1979
- Wolf, Christa 1990
- Yevtushenko, Yevgeny 1987
- Zhang, Jie 1992
Deceased Members
Deceased members are listed from A to Z.
Other Academies
(See entry for the French Academy; the British Academy; and the Spanish Academy.
