The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 250-member honor society. Its goal is to support excellence in American literature, music, and art. It is in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is in Audubon Terrace on Broadway between West 155th and 156th Streets, with the Hispanic Society of America and Boricua College.
The academy's galleries are open to the public. Exhibits include paintings, sculptures, photographs and works on paper from contemporary artists chosen by its members. Also works by newly elected members and award winners are shown. A permanent exhibit of the recreated studio of composer Charles Ives was opened in 2014.
Musicians and engineers like to record live there because the acoustics are among the city's finest. Hundreds of commercial recordings have been made there.
Membership
Members are chosen for life. They have been some of the leading people in American art. Members are in committees that give annual prizes to help new artists.
Women were not elected to membership in the early years. In 1908, poet Julia Ward Howe was elected to the AAA, becoming the first female member.
This is a list of some past members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Institute and Academy of Arts and Letters:
Henry Brooks Adams
Herbert Adams
Henry Mills Alden
Nelson Algren
Hannah Arendt
Newton Arvin
Wystan Hugh Auden
Paul Wayland Bartlett
Chester Beach
Stephen Vincent Benét
William Rose Benét
Edwin Howland Blashfield
William Brownell
George de Forest Brush
John Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
Nicholas Murray Butler
George Washington Cable
Hortense Calisher
Joseph Campbell
George Whitefield Chadwick
William Merritt Chase
Chou Wen-chung
Timothy Cole
Kenyon Cox
John Dos Passos
Bob Dylan
Thomas Harlan Ellett
Stanley Elkin
Duke Ellington
Ralph Ellison
Daniel Chester French
William Gaddis
Hamlin Garland
Charles Dana Gibson
Cass Gilbert
Richard Watson Gilder
Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve
Brendan Gill
William Gillette
Daniel Coit Gilman
Allen Ginsberg
Bertram G. Goodhue
Robert Grant
William Elliot Griffis
Arthur Twining Hadley
Childe Hassam
Thomas Hastings
David Jayne Hill
Ripley Hitchcock
Cecil de Blaquiere Howard
Julia Ward Howe
William Henry Howe
William Dean Howells
Archer Milton Huntington
Charles Ives
Henry James
Robert Underwood Johnson
Louis I. Kahn
Kenneth Koch
Maxine Kumin
Sinclair Lewis
Roy Lichtenstein
Henry Cabot Lodge
Abbott Lawrence Lowell
Mary McCarthy
Hamilton Wright Mabie
Archibald MacLeish
Frederick William MacMonnies
Brander Matthews
William Keepers Maxwell Jr. William Rutherford Mead Gari Melchers Willard Metcalf Edna St. Vincent Millay Charles Moore Douglas Moore Paul Elmer More Robert Motherwell Georgia O'Keeffe Thomas N. Page Horatio Parker Joseph Pennell Bliss Perry William Lyon Phelps Charles Adams Platt Ezra Pound James Ford Rhodes James Whitcomb Riley George Lockhart Rives Elihu Root Theodore Roosevelt Mark Rothko Eero Saarinen Carl Sandburg John Singer Sargent Meyer Schapiro Arnold Schoenberg Harry Rowe Shelley Stuart Sherman Robert E. Sherwood Paul Shorey William Milligan Sloane Wallace Stevens Meryl Streep Lorado Taft Josef Tal Booth Tarkington Abbott Handerson Thayer William Roscoe Thayer Augustus Thomas Virgil Thomson Lionel Trilling Henry van Dyke John Charles Van Dyke Elihu Vedder Kurt Vonnegut Julian Alden Weir Barrett Wendell Edith Wharton Andrew Dickson White Thornton Wilder Brand Whitlock William Carlos Williams Woodrow Wilson Owen Wister George Edward Woodberry Frank Lloyd Wright James A. Wright
References
Notes
Sources
Other websites
American Academy of Arts & Letters — official website
Cornell Legal Institute: Title 36 > Subtitle II > Part B > Chapter 203 > § 20301 et seq. — easiest to read United States House of Representatives: United States Government Publishing Office (GPO): — revised §4701 et seq. (1916–1998) American Academy of Arts and Letters records, 1864–1942 from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art