ARTIST JUDY PFAFF AND ARCHITECT TOD WILLIAMS ELECTED TO ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS
The Associated Press is reporting that nine new members have been voted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Openings occur when a member dies. The new members include artist Judy Pfaff and architect Tod Williams, along with authors Richard Price and T. C. Boyle, poets Jorie Graham and Yusef Komunyakaa, and composers Stephen Hartke, Frederic Rzewski, and Augusta Read Thomas. Upon the official ceremony in May, they will enter a 250-member club that has inducted Henry Adams, Mark Twain, and Mark Rothko and currently includes Edward Albee, Philip Glass, and Toni Morrison. Artists are encouraged to serve on committees that award prizes, but there is no responsibility beyond agreeing to join.
Founded more than a century ago, and with a mission “to foster and sustain an interest in literature, music, and the fine arts,” the academy was long a reclusive institution and remains—even among some artists—a bit distant, known mostly at those moments when it chooses to show its face. Academy president J. D. McClatchy, who in January began a three-year term, plans to change that. “I’ve been writing letters to Congress, to the White House, asking for more support for the arts. We’re about to issue a series of letters on copyright issues,” McClatchy said. “We’re going to try to bring the academy a little more into the twenty-first century and bring it into the community, especially the very young.” The academy shares at least one concern with the public: the economy. The academy’s endowment has dropped sharply, and prize money being awarded this year has been cut 14 percent, with some honors being delayed and others offering smaller cash awards.
The academy has three categories: art, music and literature, with members nominating and voting for future choices. The academy’s body is far more diverse than it was decades ago. No longer are blacks, modernists, abstract painters, and photographers excluded. Rebels the academy once would have scorned—Kurt Vonnegut, Amiri Baraka, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti—have been admitted. The first photographer, Cindy Sherman, was elected in 2005.
