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In the three decades that the National Medals of Arts have been awarded, the list of recipients has grown long and luminous. Ray Bradbury, Maya Angelou, Aretha Franklin, Frank Capra, Georgia O'Keeffe, even AT&T (and 

) — the artists and arts patrons who have earned the prize from the U.S. government are as hallowed in name as they are diverse in discipline.



Stephen King, the prolific novelist behind best-selling frights such as 

 from President Obama on Thursday, along with 10 other artists. In the citation for the prize, read by Obama at the White House awards ceremony, the National Endowment for the Arts spoke of King in glowing terms:


"One of the most popular and prolific writers of our time, Mr. King combines his remarkable storytelling with his sharp analysis of human nature. For decades, his works of horror, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy have terrified and delighted audiences around the world."

King, on the other hand, was a bit more modest in his reaction on Twitter.


But King is not the only novelist on the list. 

, who's known as much for his short stories and memoirs as for his longer fiction, received a medal as well. So too did actress 

, opera tenor George Shirley and multidimensional musician Meredith Monk — who has described her work as 

 Theater director Ping Chong, who also  received a medal Thursday, has collaborated with Monk on some of that 

Instituted in 1984, the National Medal of Arts affords the U.S. president the opportunity to award as many as a dozen medals each year — to "individuals or groups who in the President's judgment are deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support, and availability of the arts in the United States," according to the National Endowment for the Arts.


At the same ceremony Thursday, the winners of the 

 also took home their prizes. Pulitzer Prize winner 

 lead a (slightly more author-heavy) list of 10 winners — all of whose work has been deemed to have "deepened the nation's understanding of the humanities and broadened our citizens' engagement with history, literature, languages, philosophy, and other humanities subjects."


The full list of winners — for both prizes — can be found below.

Arts and Culture

The Thread® - Books and Literary News

Colin Dwyer

Author

The 2014 National Medals of Arts and the National Humanities Medals was awarded in tandem Thursday to 21 of the most renowned U.S. artists and patrons. Among the winners was Stephen King.

A medal for a King -- and for many of America's greatest living artists

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