The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 501(c)(3) organization supported by individual gifts, bequests, and grants. Many of these gifts and bequests honor our members and their legacies in Architecture, Visual Art, Writing, and Music. Our endowment was established in 1914 by member Archer M. Huntington and we are proud to continue this tradition of artists honoring and supporting one another.
Gifts to Arts and Letters support many important programs, from contemporary art exhibitions and concerts to awards honoring emerging and established architects, artists, writers, and composers. To learn more about giving or to make a contribution, please contact Executive Director Cody Upton at cupton@artsandletters.org.
Gifts and Bequests
We gratefully acknowledge the following for their support of the American Academy of Arts and Letters through gifts and bequests:
- Anonymous gift in honor of E. B. White
- Evangeline Wilbour Blashfield and Edwin Howland Blashfield
- Friends of Marc Blitzstein
- John Malcolm Brinnin
- Louis Betts
- Lillian Braude in honor of Michael Braude
- Emma Beatrice Brunner in honor of Arnold W. Brunner
- CBS Foundation in honor of Goddard Lieberson
- Roy Lyndon Danks in honor of Benjamin Hadley Danks
- Anna Bowman Blake-Dodd
- Friends of Lukas Foss
- Margaret French
- Miriam Gideon
- Childe and Maude Hassam
- Archer M. Huntington and Anna Hyatt Huntingon
- Andrew and Barbara Imbrie Christopher Isherwood in honor of E. M. Forster
- Harmony Ives in honor of Charles Ives
- Franklin H. Kissner in honor of Harold D. Vursell
- Dora Koch in honor of John Koch
- Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond
- Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence and Jacob Lawrence
- Catherine and Otto Luening
- James Merrill
- Addison M. Metcalf in honor of Willard L. Metcalf
- C. F. Peters Corporation in honor of Walter Hinrichsen
- Estate of Katherine Anne Porter
- Paige Rense in honor of Arthur Rense
- Richard Rodgers
- Rosenthal Family Foundation
- Philip Roth
- Eugene Speicher
- Mildred and Harold Strauss
- Gardner Symons
- Virgil Thomson Foundation
- Martha Updike in honor of John Updike
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Amber Lightfoot Walker in honor of Christopher Lightfoot Walker
- Katherine Lane Weems
- Tappan Wilder and Catharine Wilder Guiles in honor of Thornton Wilder
- C. Vann Woodward
- Morton Dauwen Zabel
Centennial Portfolio to Benefit Arts and Letters
The Centennial Portfolio is an editioned set of 50 original works on paper by members published to celebrate our centennial anniversary in 1998. The portfolio includes prints by artists, architects, writers, and composers, including collaborations between colleagues. Lithographs, etchings, screenprints, embossed prints, and woodcuts make up this richly varied collection.
The complete portfolio is newly available for purchase to support our arts programming. We have also released a limited number of editions for sale as individual prints, subject to availability. Details can be found here. For more information and sales inquiries, contact info@artsandletters.org.
Centennial Portfolio participating artists: Lennart Anderson, William Bailey, Will Barnet, Leonard Baskin, Jack Beeson, Varujan Boghosian, Paul Cadmus, Elliott Carter, John Chamberlain, Chuck Close, Henry N. Cobb, Lois Dodd, Marisol Escobar, Mary Frank, James Ingo Freed, Jane Freilicher, Frank Gehry, Allen Ginsberg, Michael Graves, Morton Gould, Cleve Gray, John Guare, Charles Gwathmey, Dimitri Hadzi, Hugh Hardy, Seamus Heaney, John Hollander, John M. Johansen, Jasper Johns, Wolf Kahn, Ibram Lassaw, Jacob Lawrence, David Levine, Jack Levine, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Lippold, Richard Meier, Kenneth Noland, Nathan Oliveira, Cynthia Ozick, Philip Pearlstein, Cesar Pelli, Anne Poor, Reynolds Price, Paul Resika, Milton Resnick, George Rickey, Larry Rivers, Ned Rorem, James Rosenquist, Robert Ryman, George Segal, Stephen Sondheim, Kenneth Snelson, William Thon, George Tooker, John Updike, Esteban Vicente, Kurt Vonnegut, Hugo Weisgall.