Medal of Arts: National Honor Bestowed on 12

Saying they “crowned the nation’s greatness with grace,” President Reagan has awarded the National Medal of Arts--this country’s closest thing to knighthood--to 12 prominent artists and patrons at the White House.

In the second year the medals have been bestowed, the recipients were a cross section of the arts’ elder statesmen: opera singer Marian Anderson; film director Frank Capra; composer Aaron Copland; painter Willem de Kooning; choreographer Agnes de Mille; patrons Dominique de Menil, the Exxon Corp. and Seymour Knox; actress Eva Le Gallienne; folklorist Alan Lomax; critic Lewis Mumford; and author Eudora Welty.

A Great Honor

Emerging from the White House in a wheelchair, De Mille, 80, said “of course” the medal was a great honor, after a career that emerged from “15 years of unbroken failure.”

Remembered for her ballet, Broadway performances and choreography of another medal winner’s work, Copland’s “Rodeo,” De Mille recalled the frustration of her early years.

“I’ve learned how to not be depressed to the point of committing suicide. I never thought about (receiving an award at) the White House. I thought about getting through the day and doing a good job. And it was.”

De Mille, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended USC, was one of only six individual winners well enough to travel to Washington to receive the award in person at a White House luncheon in the East Room Monday. Reagan, assisted by First Lady Nancy Reagan in handing out the awards, said the purpose of the event was to “celebrate 12 rich contributions to American art.” He added, “ . . . And in a wider sense, we celebrate American culture itself, the culture of liberty, the culture in which artists are free to be true to themselves.”

Anderson, 84, is the contralto who is remembered as much for her civil rights activities as for her soaring voice. Anderson performed a legendary 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial after she had been barred from nearby Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution because she was black. In 1955, at age 53, she opened the Metropolitan Opera to blacks. Anderson sent her cousin, Sandra Grymes, to accept her medal.

Capra, 89, won three Academy Awards for best direction of the classic Hollywood films “It Happened One Night,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” and “You Can’t Take It With You.” Yet he is probably just as admired for the movies “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

Capra was unable to leave his Palm Springs home. Capra’s son, Tom, who accepted the award, said his father “feels really excited about this. He feels that film itself is a purely American art form.

“Although he’s not real well and not able to move about--he’s had a few strokes--he certainly is aware of what’s going on and is quite proud of it.”

Copland, 85, was praised by Nancy Reagan as the “paramount American composer.” He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1944, an Oscar in 1950 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 for his work spanning stage, film and television. Among his best known works are “El Salon Mexico,” “Lincoln Portrait,” “Billy the Kid,” “Rodeo” and “Appalachian Spring.” Copland was not able to attend the ceremony.

De Kooning, Mrs. Reagan said, “influenced all modern painting,” creating what were then controversial abstract-expressionist paintings of women. His paintings, which hang in museums all over the world, greatly influenced other artists of the abstract-expressionist movement. His wife, Elaine, accepted his award for him.

Patron De Menil is considered the primary force behind the “renaissance of the arts in Houston,” Mrs. Reagan said. De Menil and her late husband, John, amassed one of the world’s great privately owned art collections over a 40-year period. A museum has been built to house it, scheduled to open in Houston this fall.

The De Menils have organized and financed numerous exhibitions in the United States and Europe. De Menil collected her award, a four-inch-diameter sterling silver medal, and left quickly before reporters could talk with her.

The Exxon Corp. was honored for its funding of the arts, particularly the public television series “Great Performances.” This award carried a touch of irony as Exxon, hurt by falling oil prices, announced just last month that it has decided to cut back funding on “Great Performances,” the centerpiece of the artistic patronage for which it was being honored.

“It’s a reflection of what’s going on in the oil business,” said Jack Clarke, the senior vice president who accepted the award. “We’re still going to be involved on a significant level.”

Knox, the 88-year-old arts patron from Buffalo, established the Seymour Knox Foundation, which has provided the Albright-Knox Art Gallery with more than 600 works of art and a new wing.

Knox--known by the nickname Shorty, which he acquired at Yale--said he was surprised by all the attention paid the winners and pronounced the whole affair “wonderful.”

Le Gallienne, 87, was dubbed a consummate woman of the American theater. “She is a great actress, director, producer and teacher,” Mrs. Reagan said. A recipient of a Tony and an Emmy, Le Gallienne directed such plays as Chekov’s “The Cherry Orchard” and Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” as well as starring in “The Corn Is Green,” “Mary Stuart” and “The Madwoman of Chaillot.” A friend picked up her award for her.

Lomax, 71, has devoted his life to collecting and preserving folk music from America and around the world. He has written or co-authored 12 books and for the last 24 years has been a resident scholar at Columbia University as director of cantometrics and choreometrics projects--the study of music and dance styles around the world. After picking up his award, Lomax said he had spent his life “talking to the nicest people in the world.”

Mumford, 90, was praised by Mrs. Reagan as “one of our most distinguished historians,” and is best known for his writing on cities and culture. He was among the first to criticize bigger buildings and denser cities, fearing that people would become “prisoners perpetually plotting to escape a concentration camp.” His most recent popular work is “Architecture as the Home of Man,” published in 1975. His daughter collected his prize for him.

Working on a Book

Welty, the 77-year-old Mississippi writer, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for “The Optimist’s Daughter,” and hopes to add to her collection of published writings with a book she is working on right now.

One of the country’s foremost literary figures, Welty said she was “proud to be among such people” at the awards luncheon. “I like any emphasis on the arts.”

Last year’s winners of the first Medal of Arts were composer Elliott Carter, novelist Ralph Ellison, actor Jose Ferrer, choreographer Martha Graham, sculptor Louise Nevelson, soprano Leontyne Price, the late painter Georgia O’Keeffe and arts patrons Dorothy Chandler, Paul Mellon, Lincoln Kirstein and Alice Tully.