National Medal of Arts

This medal is awarded annually in the fall by the president of the United States. It was established by Congress in 1984.

2007

Morten Lauridsen, composer

N. Scott Momaday, author, essayist, poet, professor, painter

Roy R. Neuberger, arts patron

R. Craig Noel, Old Globe Theatre director

Les Paul, guitarist

Henry Steinway, arts patron

George Tooker, painter

University of Idaho Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival, music competition and festival

Andrew Wyeth, painter

2006

William Bolcom, classical composer

Cyd Charisse, dancer

Roy R. DeCarava, photographer

Wilhelmina Holladay, arts patron

Interlochen Center for the Arts, school of fine arts

Erich Kunzel, conductor

Preservation Hall Jazz Band, jazz ensemble

Gregory Rabassa, literary translator

Viktor Schreckengost, industrial designer/sculptor

Dr. Ralph Stanley, bluegrass musician

2005

Louis Auchincloss, author

James DePreist, symphony orchestra conductor

Paquito D'Rivera, jazz musician, composer, writer

Robert Duvall, actor

Leonard Garment, arts patron and advocate

Ollie Johnston, film animator and artist

Wynton Marsalis, trumpeter, composer, Jazz at Lincoln Center artistic director

Dolly Parton, singer, songwriter

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, school of fine arts/museum

Tina Ramirez, choreographer, Ballet Hispanico artistic director

2004

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, philanthropic foundation

Ray Bradbury, author

Carlisle Floyd, opera composer

Frederick Hart (posthumous award), sculptor

Anthony Hecht (posthumous award), poet

John Ruthven, wildlife artist

Vincent Scully, architectural historian and educator

Twyla Tharp, choreographer, artistic director, dancer

2003

Austin City Limits, PBS television program

Beverly Cleary, children's book author

Rafe Esquith, arts educator

Suzanne Farrell, dancer, company director, educator

Ron Howard, actor, director, writer, producer

Buddy Guy, blues musician

Mormon Tabernacle Choir, choral group

Leonard Slatkin, symphony orchestra conductor

George Strait, country singer

Tommy Tune, dancer, actor, choreographer, director

2002

Florence Knoll Bassett, designer, architect

Trisha Brown, dancer, choreographer

Uta Hagen, actor, educator

Lawrence Halprin, landscape architect, environmental planner

Al Hirschfeld (posthumous award), artist, caricaturist

George Jones, country singer

Ming Cho Lee, painter, stage designer

Philippe de Montebello, museum director

William 'Smokey' Robinson, Jr., singer, songwriter

2001

Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, modern dance company and school

Rudolfo Anaya, writer

Johnny Cash, singer and songwriter

Kirk Douglas, actor and producer

Helen Frankenthaler, painter

Judith Jamison, artistic director, choreographer and dancer

Yo-Yo Ma, cellist

Mike Nichols, director and producer

2000

Maya Angelou, poet and writer

Eddy Arnold, country singer

Mikhail Baryshnikov, dancer and director

Benny Carter, jazz musician

Chuck Close, painter

Horton Foote, playwright and screenwriter

Lewis Manilow, arts patron

National Public Radio, cultural programming division, broadcaster

Claes Oldenburg, sculptor

Itzhak Perlman, violinist

Harold Prince, theater director and producer

Barbra Streisand, entertainer and filmmaker

1999

Irene Diamond, arts patron

Aretha Franklin, singer

Michael Graves, architect, designer

Odetta, singer, music historian

The Juilliard School, performing arts school

Norman Lear, producer, writer, director, advocate

Rosetta LeNoire, actress, producer

Harvey Lichtenstein, arts administrator

Lydia Mendoza, singer

George Segal, sculptor

Maria Tallchief, ballerina

1998

Jacques d'Amboise, dancer and choreographer

Antoine 'Fats' Domino, singer

Ramblin' Jack Elliott, folk singer

Frank Gehry, architect

Barbara Handman, arts advocate

Agnes Martin, artist

Gregory Peck, actor

Roberta Peters, opera singer

Philip Roth, author

The Sara Lee Corporation, Chicago, corporate arts patron

Steppenwolf Theater Company, Chicago

Gwen Verdon, actress and dancer

1997¹

Louise Bourgeois, sculptor

Betty Carter, jazz vocalist

Agnes Gund, president, Museum of Modern Art in New York

Daniel Urban Kiley, landscape architect from Charlotte, Vermont

Angela Lansbury, actress

James Levine, artistic director of the Metropolitan Opera, New York City

The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire

Tito Puente, Latin bandleader and musician

Jason Robards, actor

Edward Villella, former dancer, choreographer, and artistic director for the Miami City Ballet

Doc Watson, bluegrass musician

1996

Edward Albee, playwright

Sarah Caldwell, opera conductor

Harry Callahan, photographer

Zelda Fichandler, theater director, founder

Eduardo 'Lalo' Guerrero, composer, musician

Lionel Hampton, musician, bandleader

Bella Lewitzky, dancer, choreographer, teacher

Vera List, arts patron

Robert Redford, actor, director, producer

Maurice Sendak, author, illustrator, designer

Stephen Sondheim, composer, lyricist

Boys Choir of Harlem, choral arts, education

1995

Licia Albanese, opera singer

Gwendolyn Brooks, poet

B. Gerald and Iris Cantor, arts patrons

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, actors

David Diamond, composer

James Ingo Freed, architect

Bob Hope, entertainer

Roy Lichtenstein, painter, sculptor

Arthur Mitchell, dancer, choreographer

William S. Monroe, bluegrass musician

Urban Gateways, arts education organization

1994

Harry Belafonte, singer, actor

Dave Brubeck, pianist, bandleader, composer

Celia Cruz, singer

Dorothy DeLay, violin teacher

Julie Harris, actress

Erick Hawkins, dance choreographer

Gene Kelly, dancer, singer, actor

Pete Seeger, composer, lyricist, vocalist, banjo player

Catherine Filene Shouse, arts patron

Wayne Thiebaud, artist, teacher

Richard Wilbur, poet, teacher, critic, literary translator

Young Audiences, arts presenter

1993

Walter and Leonore Annenberg, arts patrons

Cabell 'Cab' Calloway, singer, bandleader

Ray Charles, singer, musician

Bess Lomax Hawes, folklorist

Stanley Kunitz, poet, educator

Robert Merrill, baritone

Arthur Miller, playwright

Robert Rauschenberg, artist

Lloyd Richards, theatrical director

William Styron, author

Paul Taylor, dancer, choreographer

Billy Wilder, movie director, writer, producer

1992

Marilyn Horne, opera singer

James Earl Jones, actor

Allan Houser, sculptor

Minnie Pearl, Grand Ole Opry performer

Robert Saudek, television producer, Museum of Broadcasting Founding Director

Earl Scruggs, banjo player

Robert Shaw, orchestra conductor, choral director

Billy Taylor, jazz pianist

Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, architects

Robert Wise, film producer, director

AT&T, corporate arts patron

Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, foundation arts patron

1991

Maurice Abravanel, music director, conductor

Roy Acuff, country singer, bandleader

Pietro Belluschi, architect

J. Carter Brown, museum director

Charles 'Honi' Coles, tap dancer

John O. Crosby, opera director, conductor, administrator

Richard Diebenkorn, painter

R. Philip Hanes, Jr., arts patron

Kitty Carlisle Hart, actress, singer, arts administrator, dancer

Pearl Primus, choreographer, anthropologist

Isaac Stern, violinist

Texaco Inc., corporate arts patron

1990

George Francis Abbott, actor, playwright, producer, director

Hume Cronyn, actor, director

Jessica Tandy, actress

Merce Cunningham, choreographer, dance company director

Jasper Johns, painter, sculptor

Jacob Lawrence, painter

Riley 'B.B.' King, blues musician, singer

David Lloyd Kreeger, arts patron

Harris & Carroll Sterling Masterson, arts patrons

Ian McHarg, landscape architect

Beverly Sills, opera singer, director

Southeastern Bell Corporation, corporate arts patron

1989

Leopold Adler, preservationist, civic leader

Katherine Dunham, dancer, choreographer

Alfred Eisenstaedt, photographer

Martin Friedman, museum director

Leigh Gerdine, arts patron, civic leader

John Birks 'Dizzy' Gillespie, jazz trumpeter

Walker Kirtland Hancock, sculptor

Vladimir Horowitz (posthumous award), pianist

Czelaw Milosz, writer

Robert Motherwell, painter

John Updike, writer

Dayton Hudson Corporation, corporate arts patron

1988

Saul Bellow, writer

Helen Hayes, actress

Gordon Parks, photographer, film director

I.M. Pei, architect

Jerome Robbins, dancer, choreographer

Rudolf Serkin, pianist

Virgil Thomson, composer, music critic

Sydney J. Freedberg, art historian, curator

Roger L. Stevens, arts administrator

Brooke Astor, arts patron

Francis Goelet, music patron

Obert C. Tanner, arts patron

1987

Romare Bearden, painter

Ella Fitzgerald, singer

Howard Nemerov, writer, scholar

Alwin Nikolais, dancer, choreographer

Isamu Noguchi, sculptor

William Schuman, composer

Robert Penn Warren, poet

J. W. Fisher, arts patron

Dr. Armand Hammer, arts patron

Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Lewis, arts patrons

1986

Marian Anderson, opera singer

Frank Capra, film director

Aaron Copland, composer

Willem de Kooning, painter

Agnes de Mille, choreographer

Eva Le Gallienne, actress, author

Alan Lomax, folklorist, scholar

Lewis Mumford, philosopher, literary critic

Eudora Welty, writer

Dominique de Menil, arts patron

Exxon Corporation, corporate arts patron

Seymour H. Knox, arts patron

1985

Elliott Carter, Jr., composer

Ralph (Waldo) Ellison, writer

Jose Ferrer, actor

Martha Graham, dancer, choreographer

Louise Nevelson, sculptress

Georgia O'Keeffe, painter

Leontyne Price, soprano

Dorothy Buffum Chandler, arts patron

Lincoln Kirstein, arts patron

Paul Mellon, arts patron

Alice Tully, arts patron

Hallmark Cards, corporate arts patron

1. In this year poet Adrienne Rich turned down her award in protest over 'the cynical politics of the Clinton administration.'

Source: National Endowment for the Arts.

Appears in these articles:

Nevelson, Louise; Warren, Robert Penn; Wilbur, Richard; Robbins, Jerome; Segal, George; Belafonte, Harry; Gillespie, Dizzy; Dunham, Katherine; Jones, James Earl; Anderson, Marian; Johns, Jasper; Copland, Aaron; Hayes, Helen; Levine, James Lawrence; Rauschenberg, Robert; Sondheim, Stephen Joshua; Serkin, Rudolf; Cronyn, Hume; Bourgeois, Louise; Parks, Gordon, Sr.; Pearl, Minnie; Eisenstaedt, Alfred; Domino, Fats; Caldwell, Sarah; National Medal of Arts; Calloway, Cab; Cruz, Celia; Villella, Edward; Lansbury, Angela; Tandy, Jessica; Venturi, Robert (Charles); Thiebaud, Wayne; Bearden, Romare; Lear, Norman; Puente, Tito; Stern, Isaac; Graves, Michael; Schuman, William Howard; Updike, John; Redford, Robert; Sills, Beverly; Lichtenstein, Roy; Tallchief, Maria; Horne, Marilyn; Nemerov, Howard; Capra, Frank; Lawrence, Jacob; Horowitz, Vladimir; Roth, Philip; Le Gallienne, Eva; Diamond, David Leo; Mumford, Lewis; Styron, William Clark, Jr.; Primus, Pearl; Acuff, Roy; de Mille, Agnes George; Sendak, Maurice; Abbott, George; Graham, Martha; Taylor, Paul; Miller, Arthur; Nikolais, Alwin; Belluschi, Pietro; Motherwell, Robert Burns; Cunningham, Merce; Bellow, Saul; de Kooning, Willem; Gehry, Frank; Kelly, Gene; Brubeck, Dave; Wise, Robert Earl; Peck, Gregory; Wilder, Billy; Hope, Bob; King, B. B.; Seeger, Pete; Charles, Ray; Hampton, Lionel; Welty, Eudora; Monroe, Bill

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