Frank Stella, Sarah Jessica Parker, et al. Set to Attend 2011 National Arts Awards

Americans for the Arts, the nation's leading organization for advancing the arts and arts education, today announced the recipients of the 2011 National Arts Awards, which recognize those artists and arts leaders who exhibit exemplary national leadership and whose work demonstrates extraordinary artistic achievement. This year's awardees are:

• Frank Stella- Isabella & Theodor Dalenson Lifetime Achievement Award
• Beverley Taylor Sorenson - Eli & Edythe Broad Award for Philanthropy in the Arts
• Jenny Holzer - Outstanding Contributions to the Arts Award
• President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities - Arts Education Award
• Gabourey Sidibe - Bell Family Foundation Young Artist Award
• Wells Fargo & Company- Corporate Citizenship in the Arts Award

The awards will be presented on October 17 at a gala dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City. Other notable attendees at this year's event include, Brooke Barzun and Ambassador Matthew Barzun, Christo, Chuck Close, Will Cotton and Rose Dergan, Todd Eberle, Pierre Dulaine, Jeff Koons, Raymond Learsy, Tina Lutz, Sarah Morris, Yvonne Marceau, Josephine Meckseper and Richard Phillips, Sarah Morris, Sarah Jessica Parker, Anne Pasternak, Ellen Phelan and Joel Shapiro, George Stevens Jr., Victoria Rowell, Jennifer and David Stockman, Mike Starn, Heather Watts and Damian Woetzel and Kulapat Yantrasast.Americans for the Arts is the nation's leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts in America. With more than 50 years of service, it is dedicated to representing and serving local communities and creating opportunities for every American to participate in and appreciate all forms of the arts.

Frank Stella
Throughout his prolific career as a painter, sculptor, printmaker and architect, Frank Stella has been known for helping to launch the Minimalism movement and then for breaking away from it. First impacting the art world by endowing non-representational artwork with new significance, Stella's instantly acclaimed 1958 Minimalist paintings contrasted Abstract Expressionism's emotional canvases. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, his work was included in a number of significant exhibitions that proved to define the art of the time. In 1970, at the age of 34, he became the youngest artist to receive a full-scale retrospective at MoMA, and just 17 years later, he was given an unprecedented second retrospective exhibition for a living artist at MoMA. Throughout his career, Stella has received many honors and awards, including first prize in Tokyo's International Biennial Exhibition of Paintings, the Claude M. Fuess Distinguished Service Award from Phillips Academy, the Skowhegan Award for Painting, the Mayor's Award for Arts and Culture and the Award of American Art from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1989 he received the Ordre des Arts et des Letters from the French government. In 1992 he was awarded the Barnard Medal of Distinction. He was presented with the Gold Medal for Graphic Art award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998. In 2000 he became the only American artist to have been given a solo show at London's Royal Academy of which he is a member. He was presented with the Gold Medal for Graphic Art award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998. Stella won the Gold Medal of the National Arts Club in New York (2001). In 2009 Stella was the recipient of the Julio Gonzalez Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Arts in Valencia, Spain and in the same year was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama.

Beverely Taylor Sorenson
Beverley Taylor Sorenson has developed a rich legacy of love and support for arts education in Utah. Her work to launch and sustain Art Works for Kids-a grassroots initiative created to ensure that Utah's school children receive the benefits of high-quality, integrated arts instruction-has helped develop a renewed effort to ensure Utah children have a complete education that includes sequential K-6 arts education. In addition, Beverley for years has lobbied lawmakers to put the arts back in elementary school classrooms. And her efforts have paid off. In 2002, she secured public funds to help expand the number of schools Art Works for Kids could serve. In 2008, arts education in Utah received a significant boost when the Utah State Legislature funded the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program, which brings the Art Works for Kids integrated teaching model to classrooms across the state. In addition to providing instruction in elementary schools, the program funds teacher training programs at colleges and universities, pays for arts supplies, equipment and materials and supports ongoing research to ensure quality implementation and results. Today, Beverley continues to work with public and private entities, parents, educators and business and community leaders to realize her dream of bringing arts education to every single elementary child in Utah.

Jenny Holzer
For more than thirty years, Jenny Holzer has presented her astringent ideas, arguments and sorrows in public places and international exhibitions, including 7 World Trade Center, the Reichstag, the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her medium, whether formulated as a T-shirt, as a plaque, or as an LED sign, is writing, and the public dimension is integral to the delivery of her work. Starting in the 1970s with the New York City posters, and up to her recent light projections on landscape and architecture, her practice has rivaled ignorance and violence with humor, kindness, and moral courage. Holzer received the Leone d'Oro at the Venice Biennale in 1990 and the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in 1996. She holds honorary degrees from Ohio University, Williams College, the Rhode Island School of Design, The New School, and Smith College. She received the Barnard Medal of Distinction in 2011.

Presidents Committee on the Arts and Humanities, Arts Education Award
Created in 1982, the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) is an advisory committee to the White House on cultural issues. It works directly with the three primary cultural agencies-National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services-as well as other federal partners and the private sector to address policy questions in the arts and humanities, to initiate and support key programs in those disciplines and to recognize excellence in the field. Its core areas of focus are arts and humanities education, cultural exchange and creative economy. In 2011, the PCAH released the groundbreaking report, "Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America's Future Through Creative Schools," which makes the case for expanding access to arts education in schools, arguing that the arts hold great potential to bolster student engagement and academic achievement. The report gives special attention to the practice of arts integration, where subjects such as math, science and language arts are integrated with teaching arts disciplines.

Gabourey Sidibe
Gabourey Sidibe burst onto the scene with her standout role ‘Precious' in Lee Daniels' film Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push' by Sapphire, for which she received an Academy Award® and Golden Globe® nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She also garnered Best Actress nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, Broadcast Film Critics and British Academy of Film and Television Arts. The National Board of Review awarded her with the Breakthrough Performance Award and the Santa Barbara International Film Festival honored Gabourey with the Vanguard Award for taking artistic risks and making a significant and unique contribution to film. Gabourey was awarded both The Film Independent Independent Spirit Award and the NAACP Image Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. She can currently be seen in the Golden Globe® nominated Showtime comedic series The Big C opposite Laura Linney. Gabourey recently wrapped a lead role in Universal Film's Tower Heist opposite Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller for director Brett Ratner, which will be in theaters November 2011. In addition, she can soon be seen in Victoria Mahoney's film Yelling to the Sky which World Premiered at The Berlinale Film Festival and had its US Premiere at SXSW.