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:Source:
Source: American Academy of Arts and Letters
2014 – Henry N. Cobb2008 – Richard Meier2002 – Frank O. Gehry1996 – Philip Johnson1990 – Kevin Roche1984 – Gordon Bunshaft1979 – I. M. Pei1973 – Louis I. Kahn1968 – R. Buckminster Fuller1963 – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe1958 – Henry R. Shepley1953 – Frank Lloyd Wright1949 – Frederick Law Olmsted1940 – William Adams Delano1930 – Charles Adams Platt1921 – Cass Gilbert1912 – William Rutherford MeadSource: American Academy of Arts and Letters
2011 – Eric Bentley2005 – Joan Didion1999 – Harold Bloom1993 – Elizabeth Hardwick1987 – Jacques Barzun1981 – Malcolm Cowley1975 – Kenneth Burke1970 – Lewis Mumford1965 – Walter Lippmann1960 – E. B. White1955 – Edmund Wilson1950 – H. L. Mencken1946 – Van Wyck Brooks1935 – Agnes Repplier1925 – William Crary Brownell1916 – John BurroughsSource: American Academy of Arts and Letters
2012 – David McCullough2006 – Robert Caro2000 – R. W. B. Lewis1994 – Walter Jackson Bate1988 – James Thomas Flexner1982 – Francis Steegmuller1976 – Leon EdelSource: American Academy of Arts and Letters
2010 – Romulus Linney2004 – John Guare1998 – Horton Foote1992 – Sam Shepard1986 – Sidney Kingsley1980 – Edward Albee1969 – Tennessee Williams1964 – Lillian Hellman1959 – Arthur Miller1954 – Maxwell Anderson1941 – Robert E. Sherwood1931 – William Gillette1922 – Eugene O'Neill1913 – Augustus ThomasSource: American Academy of Arts and Letters
2013 – E. L. Doctorow2007 – John Updike2001 – Philip Roth1995 – William Maxwell1989 – Isaac Bashevis Singer1983 – Bernard Malamud1978 – Peter Taylor1977 – Saul Bellow1972 – Eudora Welty1967 – Katherine Anne Porter1962 – William Faulkner1957 – John Dos Passos1952 – Thornton Wilder1944 – Willa Cather1933 – Booth Tarkington1929 – Edith Wharton1915 – Charles William Eliot1915 – William Dean HowellsSource: American Academy of Arts and Letters
2010 – Ed Ruscha2004 – Chuck Close1998 – Frank Stella1992 – David Levine1986 – Jasper Johns1980 – Peggy Bacon1974 – Saul Steinberg1969 – Leonard Baskin1964 – Ben Shahn1959 – George Grosz1954 – Reginald MarshSource: American Academy of Arts and Letters
2014 – Natalie Zemon Davis2008 – Edmund S. Morgan2002 – John Hope Franklin1996 – Peter Gay1990 – C. Vann Woodward1984 – George F. Kennan1978 – Barbara W. Tuchman1972 – Henry Steele Commager1967 – Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.1962 – Samuel Eliot Morison1957 – Allan Nevins1952 – Carl Sandburg1948 – Charles Austin Beard1937 – Charles M. Andrews1927 – William M. Sloane1918 – William Roscoe Thayer1910 – James Ford Rhodes2015 – George Crumb2009 – Leon Kirchner2006 – Stephen Sondheim2003 – Ned Rorem2000 – Lukas Foss1997 – Gunther Schuller1994 – Hugo Weisgall1991 – David Diamond1988 – Milton Babbitt1985 – Leonard Bernstein1982 – William Schuman1976 – Samuel Barber1971 – Elliott Carter1966 – Virgil Thomson1961 – Roger Sessions1956 – Aaron Copland1951 – Igor Stravinsky1947 – John Alden Carpenter1938 – Walter Damrosch1928 – George W. Chadwick1919 – Charles Martin Loeffler2011 – Cy Twombly2005 – Jane Freilicher1999 – Robert Rauschenberg1993 – Richard Diebenkorn1987 – Isabel Bishop1981 – Raphael Soyer1975 – Willem de Kooning1970 – Georgia O'Keeffe1965 – Andrew Wyeth1960 – Charles E. Burchfield1955 – Edward Hopper1950 – John Sloan1942 – Cecilia Beaux1932 – Gari Melchers1923 – Edwin Howland Blashfield1914 – John Singer Sargent2015 – Louise Gluck2009 – Mark Strand2003 – W. S. Merwin1997 – John Ashbery1991 – Richard Wilbur1985 – Robert Penn Warren1979 – Archibald MacLeish1973 – John Crowe Ransom1968 – W. H. Auden1963 – William Carlos Williams1958 – Conrad Aiken1953 – Marianne Moore1939 – Robert Frost1929 – Edwin Arlington Robinson1911 – James Whitcomb Riley2013 – Mark di Suvero2007 – Martin Puryear2001 – Richard Serra1995 – George Rickey1989 – Louise Bourgeois1983 – Louise Nevelson1977 – Isamu Noguchi1971 – Alexander Calder1966 – Jacques Lipchitz1961 – William Zorach1956 – Ivan Meštrović1951 – James Earle Fraser1945 – Paul Manship1936 – George Grey Barnard1930 – Anna Hyatt Huntington1926 – Herbert Adams1917 – Daniel Chester French1909 – Augustus Saint-GaudensSource: American Academy of Arts and Letters List of Awards
2014 – Henry N. Cobb, Architecture2014 – Natalie Zemon Davis, History2013 – E. L. Doctorow, Fiction2013 – Mark di Suvero, Sculpture2011 – Eric Bentley, Belles Lettres and Criticism2011 – Cy Twombly, Painting2010 – Romulus Linney, Drama2010 – Ed Ruscha, Graphic Art2009 – Leon Kirchner, Music2009 – Mark Strand, Poetry2008 – Richard Meier, Architecture2008 – Edmund S. Morgan, History2007 – Martin Puryear, Sculpture2007 – John Updike, Fiction2006 – Robert Caro, Biography2006 – Stephen Sondheim, Music2005 – Joan Didion, Belles Lettres and Criticism2005 – Jane Freilicher, Painting2004 – Chuck Close, Graphic Art2004 – John Guare, Drama2003 – W. S. Merwin, Poetry2003 – Ned Rorem, Music2002 – John Hope Franklin, History2002 – Frank O. Gehry, Architecture2001 – Philip Roth, Fiction2001 – Richard Serra, Sculpture2000 – Lukas Foss, Music2000 – R. W. B. Lewis, Biography1999 – Harold Bloom, Belles Lettres1999 – Robert Rauschenberg, Painting1998 – Horton Foote, Drama1998 – Frank Stella, Graphic Art1997 – John Ashbery, Poetry1997 – Gunther Schuller, Music1996 – Peter Gay, History1996 – Philip Johnson, Architecture1995 – William Maxwell, Fiction1995 – George Rickey, Sculpture1994 – Walter Jackson Bate, Biography1994 – Hugo Weisgall, Music1993 – Richard Diebenkorn, Painting1993 – Elizabeth Hardwick, Belles Lettres/Criticism1992 – David Levine, Graphic Art1992 – Sam Shepard, Drama1991 – David Diamond, Music1991 – Richard Wilbur, Poetry1999 – Kevin Roche, Architecture1990 – C. Vann Woodward, History1989 – Louise Bourgeois, Sculpture1989 – Isaac Bashevis Singer, Fiction1988 – Milton Babbitt, Music1988 – James Thomas Flexner, Biography1987 – Jacques Barzun, Belles Lettres1987 – Isabel Bishop, Painting1986 – Jasper Johns, Graphic Art1986 – Sidney Kingsley, Drama1985 – Leonard Bernstein, Music1985 – Robert Penn Warren, Poetry1984 – Gordon Bunshaft, Architecture1984 – George F. Kennan, History1983 – Bernard Malamud, Fiction1983 – Louise Nevelson, Sculpture1982 – William Schuman, Music1982 – Francis Steegmuller, Biography1981 – Malcolm Cowley, Belles Lettres1981 – Raphael Soyer, Painting1980 – Edward Albee, Drama1980 – Peggy Bacon, Graphic Art1979 – Archibald MacLeish, Poetry1979 – I. M. Pei, Architecture1978 – Peter Taylor, Short Story1978 – Barbara W. Tuchman, History1977 – Saul Bellow, Novel1977 – Isamu Noguchi, Sculpture1976 – Samuel Barber, Music1976 – Leon Edel, Biography1975 – Kenneth Burke, Belles Lettres1975 – Willem de Kooning, Painting1974 – Saul Steinberg, Graphic Art1973 – Louis I. Kahn, Architecture1973 – John Crowe Ransom, Poetry1972 – Henry Steele Commager, History1972 – Eudora Welty, Novel1971 – Alexander Calder, Sculpture1971 – Elliott Carter, Music1970 – Lewis Mumford, Belles Lettres1970 – Georgia O'Keeffe, Painting1969 – Leonard Baskin, Graphic Art1969 – Tennessee Williams, Drama1968 – W. H. Auden, Poetry1968 – R. Buckminster Fuller, Architecture1967 – Katherine Anne Porter, Fiction1967 – Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., History1966 – Jacques Lipchitz, Sculpture1966 – Virgil Thomson, Music1965 – Walter Lippmann, Essays1965 – Wyeth, Painting1964 – Lillian Hellman, Drama1964 – Ben Shahn, Graphic Art1963 – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Architecture1963 – William Carlos Williams, Poetry1962 – William Faulkner, Fiction1962 – Samuel Eliot Morison, History1961 – Rogers H. Sessions, Music1961 – William Zorach, Sculpture1960 – Charles E. Burchfield, Painting1960 – E. B. White, Essays1959 – George Grosz, Graphic Art1959 – Arthur Miller, Drama1958 – Conrad Aiken, Poetry1958 – Henry R. Shepley, Architecture1957 – John Dos Passos, Fiction1957 – Allan Nevins, History1956 – Aaron Copland, Music1956 – Ivan Meštrović, Sculpture1955 – Edward Hopper, Painting1955 – Edmund Wilson, Essays1954 – Maxwell Anderson, Drama1954 – Reginald Marsh, Graphic Art1953 – Marianne Moore, Poetry1953 – Frank Lloyd Wright, Architecture1952 – Carl Sandburg, History1952 – Thornton Wilder, Fiction1951 – James Earle Fraser, Sculpture1951 – Igor Stravinsky, Music1950 – H. L. Mencken, Essays1950 – John Sloan, Painting1949 – Frederick Law Olmsted, Architecture1948 – Charles Austin Beard, History1947 – John Alden Carpenter, Music1946 – Van Wyck Brooks, Essays1945 – Paul Manship, Sculpture1944 – Willa Cather, Fiction1943 – Stephen Vincent Benet, Literature1942 – Cecilia Beaux, Painting1941 – Robert E. Sherwood, Drama1940 – William Adams Delano, Architecture1939 – Robert Frost, Poetry1938 – Walter Damrosch, Music1937 – Charles M. Andrews, History1936 – George Grey Barnard, Sculpture1935 – Agnes Repplier, Belles Lettres1933 – Booth Tarkington, Fiction1932 – Gari Melchers, Painting1931 – William Gillette, Drama1930 – Anna Hyatt Huntington, Sculpture1930– Charles Adams Platt, Architecture1929 – Edwin Arlington Robinson, Poetry1928 – George W. Chadwick, Music1927 – William M. Sloane, History1926 – Herbert Adams, Sculpture1925 – William Crary Brownell, Belles Lettres1924 – Edith Wharton, Fiction1923 – Edwin Howland Blashfield, Painting1922 – Eugene O'Neill, Drama1921 – Cass Gilbert, Architecture1919 – Charles Martin Loeffler, Music1918 – William Roscoe Thayer, History1917 – Daniel Chester French, Sculpture1916 – John Burroughs, Belles Lettres1916 – Charles William Eliot, Fiction1915 – William Dean Howells, Fiction1914 – John Singer Sargent, Painting1913 – Augustus Thomas, Drama1912 – William Rutherford Mead, Architecture1911 – James Whitcomb Riley, Poetry1910 – James Ford Rhodes, History1909 – Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Sculpture