The American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1904 as a highly selective group of 50 members within a larger organization called the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Over the years the two groups functioned separately with different memberships, budgets, and boards of directors. In 1993 the two groups finally agreed to form a single group of 250 members under the name of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Members are chosen from the fields of literature, music, and the fine arts. Members must be native or naturalized citizens of the United States. They are elected for life and pay no dues. New members are elected only upon the death of other members.
This year 12 new members were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Three of the new members are women.
Joan Jonas is professor emerita in the Program in Art, Culture, and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been affiliated with MIT since 1998. Originally a sculptor, Jonas is a pioneer in video and performance art. A native of New York, Jonas is a 1958 graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she majored in art history. After studying sculpture at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Jonas earned a master of fine arts degree in sculpture from Columbia University.
Jane Kramer has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1964. She has written the magazine’s Letter from Europe column since 1981 and many of these works have been published in book collections. Kramer’s book The Last Cowboy (Harper, 1977) won the American Book Award for nonfiction. A native of Providence, Rhode Island, Kramer has taught at Princeton University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the City University of New York. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and a master’s degree from Columbia University.
Pat Steir is an artist who lives and works in New York City. She best known for her paintings of waterfalls and her works are displayed in many of the world’s great art museums. A native of Newark, New Jersey, Steir studied at the Boston University College of Fine Arts and then received a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Pratt Institute in New York. In 1991, Pratt awarded Steir an honorary doctorate.