American Academy of Arts and Letters expands core membership to diversify; architect Balkrishna Doshi named honorary member

One of the country’s oldest cultural institutions, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, is undergoing some of its biggest changes in more than a century. They range from US poet laureate Joy Harjo and author-journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates to jazz great Wynton Marsalis and visual artist Betye Saar, who at 94 is the oldest new inductee since Roger Angell was voted in at 94 in 2015. New members announced on Friday also include poet Kevin Young, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture; former US poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K Smith; The New Yorker theatre critic Hilton Als, pianist-composer Anthony Davis, visual artist Faith Ringgold and architect Walter Hood, whose work is currently featured in the Museum of Modern Art exhibit Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America. Now there are more people, and more kinds of people.” The May induction ceremony, when members usually gather at the academy’s beaux arts complex in Upper Manhattan, will be held virtually because of the coronavirus. From left: Spike Lee, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Joy Harjo, Wynton Marsalis and Betye Saar are among the inductees to the American Academy of Arts and Letters this year.