American Academy of Arts and Letters

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.John Updike, ed. A Century of Arts & Letters, Columbia University Press (1998), p. 263.Barbara S. Christen and Steven Flanders, eds. Cass Gilbert, Life and Work: Architect of the Public Domain, W. W. Norton and Company (2001), p. 12.

 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."Rival to the Great French Academy Limited to 50 Members, Receives Official Recognition From the U.S. Senate; Something About Those on the Original List", The New York Times. January 26, 1913.

Women were not elected to membership in the early years."Immortals' Plan Hall of Fame Here; Women Would Be Eligible- But "Better Form a Hall of Their Own", The New York Times. November 16, 1913. In 1908, poet Julia Ward Howe was elected to the AAA, becoming the first female member.First woman elected to American Academy of Arts and Letters, Jan. 28, 1908.

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:The history of the National Institute of Arts & Letters and the American Academy of Arts & Letters as Told, Decade by Decade, by Eleven Members: Louis Auchincloss, Jack Beeson, Hortense Calisher, Ada Louise Huxtable, Wolf Kahn, R. W. B. Lewis, Richard Lippold, Norman Mailer, Cynthia Ozick, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.- John Updike, Editor, Columbia University Press, New York, 1998.

 Henry Brooks Adams"Academicians Meet Here This Week; Members of Institute Will Join Them in Sessions at the Ritz-Carlton. France to send Greeting; Concert Wherein All Works Are by American Composers Will Be Heard", The New York Times. November 12, 1916.
 Herbert Adams"Two New Members for the Academy; Dr. Barrett Wendell and Garl Melchers, the Painter, Honored at Meeting", The New York Times. November 16, 1916.
 Henry Mills Alden
 Nelson Algren
 Hannah Arendt
 Newton ArvinAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters: Deceased Members . Retrieved January 5, 2010.
 Wystan Hugh Auden
 Paul Wayland Bartlett
 Chester Beach"W. R. Thayer Wins Medal; J.G. Huneker and Others Elected to Arts and Letters Institute.
 Stephen Vincent Benét
 William Rose Benét
 Edwin Howland Blashfield
 William Brownell
 George de Forest Brush
 John Burroughs"Academy Honors John Burroughs; Naturalist Praised by Bliss Perry and Hamlin Garland at Memorial Meeting", The New York Times, November 19, 1921.
 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 EllettThe Los Angeles Times, May 30, 1943, p. 49.
 Stanley Elkin
 Duke Ellington
 Ralph Ellison
 Daniel Chester French
 William Gaddis
 Hamlin Garland"Elected to Academy; Brand Whitlock and Hamlin Garland in Arts and Letters", The New York Times. January 12, 1918.
 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"Dr. Griffis, Friend of Japan, Dies; Educator Who Helped Japanese Adapt Themselves to Western Civilization", The New York Times. February 6, 1928.
 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"Huntington Gives Site for Academy; Men of Arts and Letters to Erect Building Near Riverside Drive and 155th St. Next to Hispanic Museum; National Institute and American Academy Accept Offer of Eight City Lots for Site", The New York Times. January 25, 1915.
 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 MooreCaemmerer, H. Paul. "Charles Moore and the Plan of Washington." Records of the Columbia Historical Society. Vol. 46/47 (1944/1945): 237–258, 254.
 Douglas Moore
 Paul Elmer More
 Robert Motherwell
 Georgia O'Keeffe
 Thomas N. Page
 Horatio Parker
 Joseph PennellJoseph Pennell, Noted Artist, Dead; Won High Honors as Etcher and Illustrator — Later Taught Art and Wrote Books", The New York Times. April 24, 1926.
 Bliss Perry
 William Lyon Phelps
 Charles Adams Platt"Academy Elects Gay and Lippman; Artist and Journalist Named to Vacancies Left by Deaths of Platt and Shorey", The New York Times. November 9, 1934.
 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"First Women Elected to Institute of Arts; Edith Wharton Among the Four Chosen — American Academy Makes Two Men Members", The New York Times. November 12, 1926.
 Robert E. Sherwood
 Paul Shorey"Would Encourage Study of Classics; Academy of Arts and Letters Suggests Courses for Schools and Colleges; Sees Aid to Civilization; Resolution Says Opposite Policy Would Lower the Culture of the American People", The New York Times. December 16, 1918.
 William Milligan Sloane
 Wallace Stevens
 Meryl Streep"Streep would like to thank the (arts) academy"  "DesMoines Register." April 12, 2010.
 Lorado Taft"Mr. Lorado Taft Dies; Leading Sculptor; Creator of Some of Country's Outstanding Monuments is Stricken at 76; Was Teacher in Chicago; Fountain of Time and Columbus Memorial in Washington Among Chief Works", The New York Times. October 31, 1936.
 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

Category:Manhattan
Category:1904 establishments in the United States
Category:1900s establishments in New York (state)
Category:American writers' organizations
Category:Museums in New York City
Category:Organizations based in New York City