Filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee and Ken Burns and singers Missy Elliott and Queen Latifah are among 20 recipients of National Medals of Arts, which will be formally presented by President Joe Biden at a White House ceremony Monday. Biden also will honor 19 recipients of National Humanities Medals, including playwright-screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and historian Jon Meacham.
Three of the medals will be awarded posthumously: The late singer Selena Quintanilla and artist Ruth Asawa are arts medal winners and the late chef-author Anthony Bourdain was among the humanities medal winners. The arts medals are managed by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the humanities medals by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Actors Idina Menzel and Eva Longoria, producer Bruce Cohen and musicians Leonardo “Flaco” Jimenez and Herbert I. Ohta also will receive arts medals, along with photographers Randy A. Batista and Clyde Butcher, artists Carrie Mae Weems, Alex Katz and Mark Bradford, arts leaders Jo Carole Lauder and Bruce Sagan and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
The arts medals are given “to individuals or groups who are deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support, and availability of the arts in the United States.”
Other humanities winners include former U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo, actor-literacy advocate LeVar Burton, cartoonist Roz Chast and philanthropists Wallis Annenberg and Darren Walker. The humanities medals honor “an individual or organization whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the human experience, broadened citizens’ engagement with history or literature, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to cultural resources.”
Humanities medalists range from such cultural institutions as the Mellon Foundation and Appalshop to educators Robin Harris, Robert Martin and Ruth J. Simmons to the scholars Pauline Yu, Nicolás Kanellos and Robin Wall Kimmerer. Writer Juan Felipe Herrera, filmmaker Dawn Porter and anthropologist Rosita Worl also will be honored Monday.