Past Recipients
From its beginning in 1956, the Creative Arts Award was bestowed upon hundreds of recipients from all fields of the arts. In 2015, the Creative Arts Award was revived, marking the university’s commitment to engaging with the arts as an opportunity for discovery, creativity and innovation across traditional disciplinary boundaries.
| Year | Name | Field | Award |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | Hallie Flanagan Davies | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1957 | Jimmy Ernst | Painting | Citation |
| 1957 | Katherine Hoskins | Poetry | Citation |
| 1957 | Robert Kurka | Music | Citation |
| 1957 | Stuart Davis | Painting | Medal |
| 1957 | William Carlos Williams | Poetry | Medal |
| 1957 | William Schuman | Music | Medal |
| 1958 | Andrew Imbrie | Music | Citation |
| 1958 | Barbara Howes | Poetry | Citation |
| 1958 | Jacques Lipchitz | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1958 | John Crowe Ransom | Poetry | Medal |
| 1958 | Paul Shyre | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1958 | Richard Lippold | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1958 | Roger Sessions | Music | Medal |
| 1958 | Stark Young | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1958 | The Shakespearewrights | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1959 | "H.D" Hilda Doolittle | Poetry | Medal |
| 1959 | Edwin Dickinson | Painting | Medal |
| 1959 | Ernest Bloch | Music | Medal |
| 1959 | George Kelly | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1959 | Hayden Carruth | Poetry | Citation |
| 1959 | Richard Hayes | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1959 | Seymour Shifrin | Music | Citation |
| 1959 | Theodoros Stamos | Painting | Citation |
| 1960 | Aaron Copland | Music | Medal |
| 1960 | Gunther Schuller | Music | Citation |
| 1960 | James Rosati | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1960 | John Berryman | Poetry | Citation |
| 1960 | Naum Gabo | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1960 | Thornton Wilder | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1960 | William Alfred | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1960 | Yvor Winters | Poetry | Medal |
| 1961 | Allen Tate | Poetry | Medal |
| 1961 | Billy Jim Layton | Music | Citation |
| 1961 | George Mueller | Painting | Citation |
| 1961 | Julian Beck and Judith Malina | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1961 | Karl Knaths | Painting | Medal |
| 1961 | Lillian Hellman | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1961 | Louis D. Coxe | Poetry | Citation |
| 1961 | Wallingford Riegger | Music | Medal |
| 1962 | Alexander Calder | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1962 | Ben Belitt | Poetry | Citation |
| 1962 | David Slivka | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1962 | Edgar Varese | Music | Medal |
| 1962 | James P. Donleavy | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1962 | Louise Bogan | Poetry | Medal |
| 1962 | Ralph Shapey | Music | Citation |
| 1962 | Samuel N. Behrman | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1963 | Elsworth Kelly | Painting | Citation |
| 1963 | Georgia O'Keeffe | Painting | Medal |
| 1963 | Howard Nemerov | Poetry | Citation |
| 1963 | Jo Mielziner | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1963 | Joseph Papp | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1963 | Marianne Moore | Poetry | Medal |
| 1963 | Walter Piston | Music | Medal |
| 1963 | Yehudi Wyner | Music | Citation |
| 1964 | Carl Ruggles | Music | Medal |
| 1964 | Cheryl Crawford | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1964 | David Smith | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1964 | Donald Martino | Music | Citation |
| 1964 | Jack Richardson | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1964 | Peter Agostini | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1964 | Richard Yates | Fiction | Citation |
| 1964 | Vladimir Nabokov | Fiction | Medal |
| 1964 | R. Buckminster Fuller | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1965 | Anthony Hecht | Poetry | Citation |
| 1965 | Elliott Carter | Music | Medal |
| 1965 | Kenneth Noland | Painting | Citation |
| 1965 | Mark Rothko | Painting | Medal |
| 1965 | Michael Smith | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1965 | Salvatore Martirano | Music | Citation |
| 1965 | Stanley Kunitz | Poetry | Medal |
| 1965 | Tennessee Williams | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1965 | Alfred H. Barr Jr. | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1966 | Alvin Epstein | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1966 | Eudora Welty | Fiction | Medal |
| 1966 | Eva Le Gallienne | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1966 | Isamu Noguchi | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1966 | John Barth | Fiction | Citation |
| 1966 | Mario Davidovsky | Music | Citation |
| 1966 | Richard Stankiewicz | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1966 | Stefan Wolpe | Music | Medal |
| 1966 | Meyer Schapiro | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1967 | Claudio Spies | Music | Citation |
| 1967 | Conrad Aiken | Poetry | Medal |
| 1967 | Ellen Stewart | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1967 | Jerome Robbins | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1967 | Kevin Roche | Architecture | Citation |
| 1967 | Ludwig Mies van der Rohe | Architecture | Medal |
| 1967 | May Swenson | Poetry | Citation |
| 1967 | Ross Lee Finney | Music | Medal |
| 1967 | Kenneth Burke | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1968 | Easley Blackwood | Music | Citation |
| 1968 | Elizabeth M. Thomas | Nonfiction | Citation |
| 1968 | Frank Stella | Painting | Citation |
| 1968 | Joseph Cornell | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1968 | Lionel Trilling | Nonfiction | Medal |
| 1968 | Richard Rodgers | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1968 | Tom O'Horgan | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1968 | Virgil Thomson | Music | Medal |
| 1968 | Martha Graham | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1969 | Boris Aronson | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1969 | Ernst Krenek | Music | Medal |
| 1969 | Galway Kinnel | Poetry | Citation |
| 1969 | Henry Weinberg | Music | Citation |
| 1969 | Jose de Rivera | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1969 | Leonie Adams | Poetry | Medal |
| 1969 | Mark di Suvero | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1969 | The Negro Ensemble Co. | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1969 | Lewis Mumford | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1970 | Arthur Miller | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1970 | Barnett Newman | Painting | Medal |
| 1970 | Charles Wuorinen | Music | Citation |
| 1970 | Isaac B. Singer | Fiction | Medal |
| 1970 | Jasper Johns | Painting | Citation |
| 1970 | Milton Babbitt | Music | Medal |
| 1970 | Robert Coover | Fiction | Citation |
| 1970 | The Open Theater | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1970 | Lloyd Goodrich | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1971 | Charles Chaplin | Film | Medal |
| 1971 | Claes Oldenberg | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1971 | Richard Wilbur | Poetry | Medal |
| 1971 | George Balanchine | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1972 | Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1972 | Edward Hoagland | Fiction | Citation |
| 1972 | Ian L. McHarg | Architecture | Citation |
| 1972 | Katherine Ann Porter | Fiction | Medal |
| 1972 | Louis I. Kahn | Architecture | Medal |
| 1972 | Merce Cunningham | Dance | Medal |
| 1972 | The New Dramatists | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1972 | Twyla Tharp | Dance | Citation |
| 1972 | I. A. Richards | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1973 | Alfred Kazin | Nonfiction | Medal |
| 1973 | David del Tredici | Music | Citation |
| 1973 | Joan Mitchell | Painting | Citation |
| 1973 | John Ford | Film | Medal |
| 1973 | Roy Harris | Music | Medal |
| 1973 | Stanley Brakhage | Film | Citation |
| 1973 | Theodore Solotaroff | Nonfiction | Citation |
| 1973 | Willem de Kooning | Painting | Medal |
| 1973 | Leonard Bernstein | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1974 | Anna Sokolow | Dance | Medal |
| 1974 | Arena Stage Theater | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1974 | Helen Hayes | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1974 | John Frederick Nims | Poetry | Citation |
| 1974 | Meredith Monk | Dance | Citation |
| 1974 | Robert Francis | Poetry | Medal |
| 1974 | Robert Morris | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1974 | Tony Smith | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1974 | William Dunas | Dance | Citation |
| 1974 | Jacques Barzun (not awarded) | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1975 | Christopher Isherwood | Fiction | Medal |
| 1975 | Clyfford Still (declined) | Painting | Medal |
| 1975 | Harold Brodkey | Fiction | Citation |
| 1975 | Isabel Bishop | Painting | Medal |
| 1975 | Jacob Druckman | Music | Citation |
| 1975 | Jordan Belson | Film | Citation |
| 1975 | King Wallis Vidor | Film | Medal |
| 1975 | Robert Whitman | Visual Arts | Citation |
| 1975 | Vincent Persichetti | Music | Medal |
| 1975 | Aaron Copland | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1976 | Anthony Tudor | Dance | Medal |
| 1976 | Eliot Feld | Dance | Citation |
| 1976 | Harold Clurman | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1976 | Irving Howe | Nonfiction | Medal |
| 1976 | Philip Johnson | Architecture | Medal |
| 1976 | Robert Venturi | Architecture | Citation |
| 1976 | Sam Shepard | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1976 | Susan Sontag | Nonfiction | Citation |
| 1976 | Isaac Stern | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1977 | Earle Brown | Music | Citation |
| 1977 | Howard Hawks | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1977 | John Hancock | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1977 | Leon Kirchner | Music | Medal |
| 1977 | Mary Frank | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1977 | Reuben Nakian | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1977 | Robert Lowell | Poetry | Medal |
| 1977 | Theodore Weiss | Poetry | Citation |
| 1977 | Alfred A. Knopf | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1978 | Grace Paley | Fiction | Citation |
| 1978 | Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1978 | Lester Johnson | Painting | Citation |
| 1978 | Long Wharf Theatre | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1978 | Paul Taylor | Dance | Medal |
| 1978 | Pilobolus Dance Theatre | Dance | Citation |
| 1978 | Robert Rauschenberg | Painting | Medal |
| 1978 | Saul Bellow | Fiction | Medal |
| 1979 | Bruce Conner | Film | Citation |
| 1979 | George Crumb | Music | Medal |
| 1979 | George Cukor | Film | Medal |
| 1979 | George Rickey | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1979 | Jackie Winsor | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1979 | Jeremy Bernstein | Nonfiction | Medal |
| 1979 | Peter Matthiessen | Nonfiction | Citation |
| 1979 | Tyson Street | Music | Citation |
| 1979 | Edwin Denby | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1980 | Edgar Bowers | Poetry | Medal |
| 1980 | Lanford Wilson | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1980 | Philip Guston | Painting | Medal |
| 1980 | Suzanne Farrell | Dance | Medal |
| 1980 | Betty Parsons | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1981 | Bernard Malamud | Fiction | Medal |
| 1981 | I. M. Pei and Partners | Architecture | Medal |
| 1981 | Otto Luening | Music | Medal |
| 1981 | Samuel Fuller | Film | Medal |
| 1981 | Tatyana Grosman | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1982 | C. Vann Woodward | Nonfiction | Medal |
| 1982 | Jennifer Tipton | Dance | Medal |
| 1982 | Mary Miss | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1982 | Michael L. Walzer | Nonfiction | Citation |
| 1982 | Peter Voulkos | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1982 | Stephen J. Sondheim | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1982 | Trisha Brown | Dance | Medal |
| 1982 | James Johnson Sweeney | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1983 | Al Held | Painting | Medal |
| 1983 | Billy Wilder | Film | Medal |
| 1983 | Howard Moss | Poetry | Citation |
| 1983 | Jennifer Bartlet | Painting | Citation |
| 1983 | Lucas Foss | Music | Medal |
| 1983 | Morton Subotnick | Music | Citation |
| 1983 | Robert Penn Warren | Poetry | Medal |
| 1983 | The Film Forum | Film | Citation |
| 1983 | John Cage | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1984 | Jerome Robbins | Dance | Medal |
| 1984 | Joel Shapiro | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1984 | John Chamberlain | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1984 | Mabou Mines | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1984 | Paula Fox | Fiction | Citation |
| 1984 | Sam Shepard | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1984 | School of American Ballet | Dance | Citation |
| 1984 | William Maxwell | Fiction | Medal |
| 1985 | William Shawn | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1985 | Cy Twombley | Painting | Medal |
| 1985 | Dorothea Rockburne | Painting | Citation |
| 1985 | James Merrill | Poetry | Medal |
| 1985 | Thomas Gunn | Poetry | Citation |
| 1985 | George Rochberg | Music | Medal |
| 1985 | Ornette Coleman | Music | Citatio |
| 1985 | Harry Callahan | Photography | Medal |
| 1985 | Robert Cumming | Photography | Citation |
| 1986 | Lincoln Kirstein | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1986 | John Huston | Film | Medal |
| 1986 | Shirley Clarke | Film | Citation |
| 1986 | Agnes DeMille | Dance | Medal |
| 1986 | Laura Dean | Dance | Citation |
| 1986 | George F. Kennan | Nonfiction | Medal |
| 1986 | Stephen Jay Gould | Nonfiction | Citation |
| 1986 | Stanley Elkin | Fiction | Medal |
| 1986 | William Kennedy | Fiction | Citation |
| 1986 | Paul Rudolph | Architecture | Medal |
| 1986 | Frank Gehry | Architecture | Citation |
| 1987 | Henry S. Commager | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1988 | Rudolph Serkin | Notable Achivement Award | |
| 1988 | John Updike | Fiction | Medal |
| 1988 | Raymond Carver | Fiction | Citation |
| 1988 | Aaron Siskind | Photography | Medal |
| 1988 | Mary Ellen Mark | Photography | Citation |
| 1988 | Alvin Ailey | Dance | Medal |
| 1988 | Susan Marshall | Dance | Citation |
| 1988 | Jasper Johns | Painting | Medal |
| 1988 | Brice Marden | Painting | Citation |
| 1989 | Frances Stelof | Notable Achievement Award | |
| 1989 | John Ashbery | Poetry | Medal |
| 1989 | Gjertrude Schnackenberg | Poetry | Citation |
| 1989 | Jonas Mekas | Film | Medal |
| 1989 | Yvonne Rainer | Film | Citation |
| 1989 | Mel Powell | Music | Medal |
| 1989 | Stephen Jaffe | Music | Citation |
| 1989 | Louise Bourgeois | Sculpture | Medal |
| 1989 | Martin Puryear | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1990 | August Wilson | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 1990 | Julie Taymor | Theater Arts | Citation |
| 1990 | John Rawls | Nonfiction | Medal |
| 1990 | Martha Nussbaum | Nonfiction | Citation |
| 1990 | Berenice Abbott | Photography | Medal |
| 1990 | Mark Klett | Photography | Citation |
| 1990 | John Hejduk | Architecture | Medal |
| 1990 | Dan Kiley | Landscape Architecture | Citation |
| 1991 | Robert Wilson | Alternative and Multidiscipline Creative Art Forms | Medal |
| 1991 | Urban Bush Women | Alternative and Multidiscipline Creative Art Forms | Citation |
| 1991 | Roy Lichtenstein | Painting | Medal |
| 1991 | Joseph Kosuth | Sculpture | Citation |
| 1991 | Annabelle Gamson | Dance | Medal |
| 1991 | Elizabeth Streb | Dance | Citation |
| 1991 | Guy Davenport | Fiction | Medal |
| 1991 | Lorrie Moore | Fiction | Citation |
| 1993 | Arthur Krieger | Music | Medal |
| 1993 | Debora Greger | Poetry | Medal |
| 1993 | Todd Haynes | Film | (unknown) |
| 2015 | Tony Arnold | Music | Medal |
| 2017 | Michael Weller | Theater Arts | Medal |
| 2019 | Fred Wilson | Fine Arts |
Medal |
| 2021 | no award given |
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| 2023 | Midori | Music | Medal |