Two American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medals are awarded each year by the academy for distinguished achievement. The two awards are taken in rotation from these categories:
- 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 Academy voted in 1915 to establish an additional Gold Medal for "special distinction" to be given for the entire work of the recipient who is not a member of the academy. The first of these occasional lifetime achievement gold medals was awarded in the next year to former Harvard President, Charles Eliot.
Awards in individual categories are listed below (in alphabetical order) followed by a list of all prizes in reverse chronological order:
- This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.
Read more about American Academy Of Arts And Letters Gold Medals: Special Distinction, Architecture, Belles Lettres, Criticism, Essays, Biography, Drama, Fiction, Novel, Short Story, Graphic Art, History, Music, Painting, Poetry, Sculpture, All Winners
Famous quotes containing the words american, academy, arts, letters and/or gold:
“Indeed, I believe that in the future, when we shall have seized again, as we will seize if we are true to ourselves, our own fair part of commerce upon the sea, and when we shall have again our appropriate share of South American trade, that these railroads from St. Louis, touching deep harbors on the gulf, and communicating there with lines of steamships, shall touch the ports of South America and bring their tribute to you.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)
“I won’t undertake war until I have tried all the arts and means of peace.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“If your letters are as long as the bible, they will appear short to me. Only let them be brim full of affection.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“In the gold mouth of a flower
the black smell of spring earth.
No more skulls on our desks
but the pervasive
testing of death....”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)