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Edward MacDowell Medal


The Edward MacDowell Medal is an award which has been given since 1960 to one person annually who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture and the arts. It is given by the MacDowell Colony, the first artist residency program in the United States.

The award is named for composer Edward MacDowell, who, with pianist Marian MacDowell, his wife, founded The MacDowell Colony in 1907. The Colony exists to nurture the arts by offering creative individuals of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which to produce enduring works of the imagination. Each year, MacDowell welcomes more than 275 architects, composers, filmmakers, interdisciplinary artists, theatre artists, visual artists, and writers from across the United States and around the globe

Established in 1960 with the first award going to Thornton Wilder, the award is given to one artist each year, from among seven artistic disciplines, "architecture, visual art, music composition, theater, writing, filmmaking and interdisciplinary art."

Composer Aaron Copland was the second recipient of the award in 1961. Copland had been a resident of the artist's colony eight times between 1925 and 1956, and served as the MacDowell Colony's president from 1962 to 1968.

Painter Georgia O'Keeffe received the award in 1972. O'Keeffe, who was then 84 years old, decided not to attend, and asked art historian Lloyd Goodrich to accept the award on her behalf. Goodrich explained that O'Keeffe believed that her paintings were more important than her words.

When writer Mary McCarthy won the award in 1984, the New York Times sent culture reporter Samuel G. Freedman to Peterborough to interview McCarthy and cover the ceremony. McCarthy commented that if she knew that her nemesis, writer Lillian Hellman had won the award in 1976, she would have "probably not" accepted it. McCarthy conceded that the fact that her former husband, writer Edmund Wilson, had received the award in 1964 lent credibility to the honor.


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