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The National Endowment for the Arts encourages the American public to nominate artists and arts patrons for the 2012 National Medal of Arts. Visit the NEA website to submit a nomination. The deadline is March 31, 2012. The National Medal of Arts is presented by the President and is the highest award given to artists, arts organizations, and arts patrons in the United States. The nomination process is managed by the NEA.

Since the inception of the National Medal of Arts in 1984 under President Ronald Reagan, 290 individuals have been honored for their creativity, inspiration, and hard work. These exceptional individuals have significantly enriched the cultural life of our nation and include writers such as Saul Bellow and Ralph Ellison; visual artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe and Roy Lichtenstein; actors such as Meryl Streep and Al Pacino, musicians such as Aaron Copland and Jessye Norman; dancers such as Twyla Tharp and Suzanne Farrell, as well as architects, designers, arts educators, directors, and composers. Arts organizations such as Oberlin Conservatory of Music have been recognized as have arts patrons including Irene Diamond and Emily Rauh Pulitzer.

NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman notes, “We at the Arts Endowment strive to support artistic excellence in the United States, and the National Medal of Arts recipients demonstrate that the arts are continuing to thrive. Dynamic, diverse, and original, the arts are an essential part of our American identity and civilization.”

Nominees for a National Medal of Arts must be U.S. citizens with a distinguished professional career that merits receiving the U.S. government’s highest award. Competitive nominees will be familiar to reviewers so, the purpose of the nomination is to remind reviewers that a nominee should be considered. Posthumous nominations are not accepted and all nominations must be made online.