Blues Titan Buddy Guy, MoMA Director Glenn Lowry, Philanthropist Eli Broad, Des Moines Art Center Director Jeff Fleming Among Presenters

Americans for the Arts, the leading organization for advancing the arts and arts education in the United States, announces recipients of the 2013 National Arts Awards. The annual awards recognize artists and arts leaders who exhibit exemplary national leadership and whose work demonstrates extraordinary artistic achievement. This year’s recipients are:   

• Dakota Fanning – Bell Family Foundation Young Artist Award
• B.B. King – Isabella and Theodor Dalenson Lifetime Achievement Award
• John and Mary Pappajohn – Eli & Edythe Broad Award for Philanthropy in the Arts
• Joel Shapiro – Outstanding Contributions to the Arts Award
• Alberto Carvalho – Arts Education Award

The awards will be presented on October 21st as part of a by-invitation benefit at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City during National Arts and Humanities Month, the largest annual celebration for the arts and humanities in America. Grammy Award-winning blues musician and National Medal of Arts honoree Buddy Guy, Director of The Museum of Modern Art Glenn Lowry, philanthropist Eli Broad, and Jeff Fleming, Director of the Des Moines Art Center will be among the presenters. In addition, the evening will feature installations of work by world-renowned visual artist Will Cotton and a special musical performance by YoungArts. The award itself was designed in 2009 by Americans for the Arts Artists Committee member, former National Arts Awards honoree for Artistic Achievement, and international art world figure Jeff Koons.

The awards dinner is chaired by Maria Bell, member of the Americans for the Arts Board of Directors. Co-chairing the event alongside Bell are Edythe and Eli Broad, Carolyn Powers, Julie and Edward J. Minskoff, as well as Theodor Dalenson, Americans for the Arts Board member, and his wife Isabella Dalenson.

Past honorees of The National Arts Awards include: Edward Albee, Herb Alpert, Marian Anderson, Dame Julie Andrews, Wallis Annenberg, Lin Arison, George Balanchine, John Baldessari, Alec Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Chuck Close, Sofia Coppola, Aretha Franklin, Martha Graham, Frank O. Gehry, Josh Groban, Agnes Gund, Jake Gyllenhaal, Helen Hayes, Martha Rivers Ingram, Judith Jamison, Sheila C. Johnson, Ellsworth Kelly, Jeff Koons, Angela Lansbury, Jacob Lawrence, John Legend, Gerald M. Levin, Wynton Marsalis, Kate and Laura Mulleavy (Rodarte), Yoko Ono, Joseph Papp, Natalie Portman, Phil Ramone, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Redford, Ed Ruscha, Salman Rushdie, Martin Scorsese, Cindy Sherman, Beverly Sills, Anna Deavere Smith, Stephen Sondheim, David Rockefeller, Sr., Isaac Stern, Billy Taylor, Paul Taylor, Uma Thurman, Kerry Washington, Wendy Wasserstein, Sanford I. Weill and Kehinde Wiley.

Americans for the Arts President and CEO Robert L. Lynch comments, “At Americans for the Arts we are thrilled to be honoring such a tremendous group of artistic visionaries and leaders. Joel Shapiro, John and Mary Pappajohn, B.B. King, and Alberto Carvalho have all contributed enormously to America’s artistic and cultural legacy. Their persistence and extraordinary achievements have already served as an inspiration, and their work will no doubt change the future of the arts in America for the better.”

Event Chair Maria Bell states, “What an honor it is to be celebrating the artistic and cultural achievements of such exceptional arts leaders. I, alongside Americans for the Arts, congratulate all of this year’s honorees for the indelible mark they have left on the cultural fabric of our nation.”

2013 National Arts Award Honorees

Dakota Fanning – Bell Family Foundation Young Artist Award
Film actress Dakota Fanning has starred in more than 25 films in her short 19 years.  Most notable are I Am Sam, Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hat, Man on Fire, War of the Worlds, Uptown Girls, Dreamer, Charlotte’s Web, The Secret Life of Bees, The Runaways, Coraline, and The Twilight Saga.   She is the youngest actor to have been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award.  She has also been nominated for numerous Critics' Choice Awards.  Ms. Fanning can next be seen in the upcoming films Night Moves, The Last of Robin Hood, and Effie Gray. She most recently finished production on Every Secret Thing for director Amy Berg and producer Frances McDormand and stars opposite Diane Lane and Elizabeth Banks. Ms. Fanning volunteers at the Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA, visiting with young cancer patients.  She is also the Youth Ambassador for the children’s rights nonprofit First Star and works with Shane’s Inspiration, an organization that builds universally accessible playgrounds.  This year, she starts her partnership with the United Nations as an ambassador to their Ending Hunger campaign.  She currently attends New York University.

B.B. King – Isabella and Theodor Dalenson Lifetime Achievement Award
B.B. King is in the eighth decade of his life and is still looking down new musical avenues in which to present his brand of the blues. Mr. King’s first real public exposure came as a disk jockey/performer on black-owned radio station WDIA.  In 1949, he began his recording career, cutting a number of sides for a now-forgotten Nashville label. His early recordings found their way to Britain, with an audience that included young boys with names like Jagger, Clapton, Beck, and Harrison, and in groups with names like Bluesbreakers, Yardbirds, and Animals—all part of an emerging blues scene that would combine with rock and become the dominant popular music of the time.  Mr. King toured and recorded with British Invasion artists, established permanent footholds in the European markets, and established himself as a global entity as both a performer and recording artist. To date, more than 75 albums bear his name, and Mr. King is the recipient of many honors, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

John and Mary Pappajohn – Eli & Edythe Broad Award for Philanthropy in the Arts
John and Mary Pappajohn have been longtime supporters of the arts as well as social service, educational and medical programs. John Pappajohn served for 12 years on the Board of Directors of the Des Moines Art Center and remains an Honorary Trustee. Mary Pappajohn has served for 18 years as a Trustee for the Des Moines Art Center and continues as an active Trustee. She is also the head of the museum’s Acquisition Committee. John and Mary donated several works of art to the Des Moines Art Center including 27 pieces of sculpture which form the core collection of the 4.5 acre John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park located in downtown Des Moines. John is also Vice Chairman of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Board of Trustees and has been a trustee there for 13 years. He has also been active on the Trustee Council of the National Gallery of Art as well as long time co-chair of their National Collectors Committee. Mary has been an active director at the Walker Art Center, in her hometown of Minneapolis, for a dozen years and John and Mary are both presently members of the Walker Advisory Board. John and Mary have been members of the National Committee of the Performing Arts of the Kennedy Center, Washington DC for over 20 years and have been listed in ARTnews as one of the top 200 Collectors in the world for over 15 years. They continue to support artists, institutions and programming worldwide.

Joel Shapiro – Outstanding Contributions to the Arts Award
Joel Shapiro was born in New York City in 1941. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from New York University. In 1998, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was named Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2005. Since 1970, his work has been the subject of many one-person and retrospective exhibitions. Mr. Shapiro’s work can be found in numerous public collections in the United States and abroad, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Prominent commissions include the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.; Conjunction, commissioned by the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies for the United States Embassy in Ottawa, Canada; and a public commission, Verge, for 23 Savile Row, London. In 2011, he completed and installed For Jennifer, commissioned by the Denver Art Museum, and in the spring of 2013 installed a public work, Now, at the new U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China, commissioned by the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies.

Alberto Carvalho – Arts Education Award
Alberto Carvalho became Superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS), the nation’s fourth largest school system, in September 2008. He is a nationally recognized expert on school reform and finance who successfully transformed his district’s business operations and financial systems with the implementation of a streamlined strategic framework, aligning resources to classroom priorities resulting in dramatic increases in reserves, bond ratings, and student achievement. M-DCPS is now widely considered the nation’s highest performing urban school system, winning the coveted 2012 Broad Prize for Urban Education.  On November 6, 2012, following four years of extraordinary district performance, Miami-Dade confirmed its faith in their public schools and their superintendent by passing a $1.2 billion bond referendum for school construction. A versatile leader, Mr. Carvalho serves as president of the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents. He has been awarded for humanitarianism as well as his work in education and business management and has been honored by the president of Portugal with the “Ordem de Mérito Civil,” and by Mexico with the “Othil Award,” the highest award for a civilian living outside of Mexico.
The National Arts Awards has garnered the support of individuals, foundations and corporations across the country. Americans for the Arts extends special gratitude to: The Bell Family Foundation, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and Isabella and Theodor Dalenson for their generosity.

Americans for the Arts is the leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts and arts education in America. With offices in Washington, D.C. and New York City, it has a record of more than 50 years of service. Americans for the Arts is dedicated to representing and serving local communities and creating opportunities for every American to participate in and appreciate all forms of the arts. Additional information is available at www.AmericansForTheArts.org.

Contact:
For Americans for the Arts
Catherine Brandt Vacovsky,
202-712-2054
[email protected]
@AFTAPress

For the National Art Awards
FITZ & CO
Anna Rosa Thomae
212-627-1455 x256
[email protected]