Citing Arts’ Power, Arthur Miller Accepts International Prize

Calling the arts “a highway into the soul of the people,” playwright Arthur Miller accepted an international prize Tuesday, an honor deferred once by Sept. 11 and a second time by the illness of his late wife.

A six-nation panel of advisors gave Miller its Praemium Imperiale prize to honor a body of work that has spanned more than half a century and that includes “Death of a Salesman” and “The Crucible,” both standards of American theater.

The panel was to announce the award last Sept. 14 in France but canceled after the terrorist attacks that month.

Miller missed the October award ceremony in Tokyo because of the sudden illness of his wife, photographer Inge Morath, who later died.

He accepted the prize Tuesday at a special luncheon in Manhattan, delivering a short speech on the power of the arts to unlock the secrets of global cultures.

“When the cannons have stopped firing, and the great victories of finance are reduced to surmise and are long forgotten, it is the art of the people that will confront future generations,” he said. “The arts can do more to sustain the peace than all the wars, the armaments and the threats and the warnings of the politicians.”