White House honors International Medal of Arts award winner Hank Willis Thomas for promoting cultural diplomacy
White House honors Int’l Medal of Arts award winners for promoting cultural diplomacy
Sept. 13 (UPI) — First lady Jill Biden presented this year’s 60th International Medal of Arts awards at a White House ceremony Wednesday night to five artists who have promoted cultural diplomacy around the world.
“For 60 years, the State Department has recognized the diplomatic power of art, distributing works to American embassies and deploying over 200 U.S. artists as culture envoys to local communities,” the first lady told the audience.
The five recipients of this year’s International Medal of Arts awards — presented by the State Department’s Art in Embassies program — are Tony Abeyta, a Diné contemporary artist from a family of Navajo artists; Sheila Hicks, who has painted in Chile and documented archeological sites throughout South America; Robert Pruitt, who paints life-sized portraits of Black figures referencing hip hop and African artistic forms; Suling Wang, who is known for her large-scale, abstract paintings; and Hank Willis Thomas, a conceptual artist who focuses on perspective, identity, commodity, media and popular culture.
