Notable Alumni in the Arts

Abramovitz, Max (1908 - 2004)
Architecture
Architect

(M.S. 1931) Architect for the Avery Fisher Hall of Lincoln Center. 

Born in Chicago, Max Abramovitz ultimately left his mark on New York City’s urban landscape with his modernist architectural designs. Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, opening in 1962, with neo-classical columns and a glass-walled interior, is a signature achievement.

After graduate studies at Columbia, he joined Harrison, Abramovitz, & Abbe, an architectural firm, where he became partner. Abramovitz collaborated with partner Harrison to design many NYC landmarks, including Rockefeller Center, the United Nations building, and the Mobil and Exxon buildings, Times & Life and McGraw-Hill.  Abramovitz also served as deputy director of planning for the United Nations and designed universities and embassies. He won a two-year fellowship to Paris’ Ecole de Beaux-Arts and the Rome Prize in 1961. 

Adams, Alice (1930 - )
Visual Arts
Sculptor
'53School of Painting and Sculpture

Alice Adams has mentored many young artists as a lecturer and instructor at Manhattanville College, the School of Visual Arts and the Pratt Institute. Her work has been shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art, and is a part of permanent collections of the American Craft Museum and The Hague Municipal Museum. Among her commissions are works for the Toledo Botanical Garden, the Denver International Airport, Thomas Jefferson University, and The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Adams' honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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Adams, Edie (1929 - 2008)
Film, Television, Theater
Actress
'50SOA

Adams launched her television, stage and screen career in the early 1950s, appearing regularly on The Ernie Kovacs Show and programs hosted by Ed Sullivan, Desi Arnez and Dinah Shore. Adams won a Tony Award for best supporting or featured actress for her performance as Daisy Mae in Li'l Abner (1956). She continued to perform into the 1980s, appearing in Anything Goes (1974), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1983) and The Merry Widow (1986). Adams' film work includes The Apartment (1960). In 1990, Adams published her memoir, Sing a Pretty Song: The "Offbeat" Life of Edie Adams. Learn more.


Adiga, Aravind (1974 - )
Literature
Writer
'97CC

Adiga grew up in Mangalore, Karnataka and studied at St. Aloysius High School where he ranked first in the state on his SSLC (secondary school examination). His family then emigrated to Sydney, Australia where Adiga completed high school before moving to New York to study English literature at Columbia. He began his writing career as a financial journalist and soon started publishing book reviews in online literary journals. Adiga was then hired by TIME magazine where he worked as the South Asia correspondent before going freelance. His debut novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Adiga continues to write from his home in Mumbai, India.

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Adler, Mortimer J. (1902 - 2001)
Literature
Writer, Philosopher
'21CC, '28GSAS

Adler believed in the Classics as the foundation for a well-educated public's intellectual and moral standing. He advocated the Western canon though his Great Books program and his work as Chairman of the Board of Editors of The Encyclopedia Britannica. His own works make what he termed "great ideas" accessible to the general reader, among them: How to Read a Book: The Art of Getting a Liberal Education (1940), Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy (1978) and The Great Ideas: A Lexicon of Western Thought (1992). Adler completed his undergraduate coursework in 1923, but refused to take the required swim test and did not receive his degree until Columbia College waived the requirement in 1983. His academic career included posts at Columbia University, the University of Chicago and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He founded the Institute for Philosophical Research as well as the Center for the Study of Great Ideas. In 1990, he was awarded the Charles Frankel Prize by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Learn more.


Alarcón, Daniel (1977 - )
Literature
Author
'99CC

Alarcón is a Peruvian writer whose work has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, Salon, and others. His collection of stories, War By Candlelight, was published in 2006 to admiring reviews and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award. Now a writer in residence at Mills College, he recently published his first novel, Lost City Radio. Alarcón has received both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Lannan Fellowship, and he was recently highlighted as one of "21 Young American Novelists" under 35 by Granta magazine.

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Albom, Mitch (1958 - )
Author
1982Journalism, 1983Business

(M.A., Columbia University School of Journalism; M.B.A., Columbia University) Author

Mitch Albom, accomplished musician, broadcaster, and writer, is one of the most award-winning sports journalists of his time.  Named best U.S. sports columnist 13 times by Associated Press Sports Editors, he also won best feature writing honors from that organization a record seven times.  He won more than 200 other writing honors from the National Headliner Awards, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the National Sportscasters and Sportswriting Association, and National Association of Black Journalists. His memoir Tuesday with Morrie made him famous; it made the New York Times bestseller list for 205 weeks. Now the bestselling memoir of all time, Tuesdays With Morrie sold over 14 million copies. The Five People You Meet in Heaven followed, also a bestseller.  

Algrant, Dan (1959 - )
Film
Director, Screenwriter
'88SIPA, '98SOA

Algrant co-wrote and directed Naked in New York (1993), starring Eric Stoltz and Mary-Louise Parker. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and earned a critics award nomination and an audience award the 1993 Festival du Cinema Americain. Algrant's short films Cathedral, Some Film Chopping Wood, Anything for Jazz, The First Dance Ever and Swimming, have screened at film festivals across the United States; Swimming won a Chicago Film Festival Silver Plaque. His latest feature film is People I Know (2002). Algrant directed three seasons of HBO's television series Sex and the City.

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Alston, Charles Henry (1907 - 1977)
Visual Arts
Painter, Sculptor, Illustrator
'29CC, '31TC

While still a student, Alston began his professional career illustrating album covers and publications for Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes. Influenced by artists such as Diego Rivera and Michelangelo, Alston painted a number of murals in Harlem, among them Magic and Medicine at the Harlem Hospital. The geometric influence of African art shows in Alston's portraits of black leaders, such as of Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. Alston's work is part of the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Detroit Institute of the Arts. Alston became the first African-American instructor at the Arts Students' League (1950-1971) and the Museum of Modern Art (1956). He became a full professor at the City University of New York in 1973. Learn more.


Altmejd, David (1974 - )
Visual Arts
Artist
'01SOA

In Spring 2004, two decapitated werewolf heads were stationed in the northern end of Central Park. The multimedia sculptures were the work of David Altmejd, and were part of the Public Art Fund's collaboration with the 2004 Whitney Biennial. Altmejd cites his fascination with fantasy and the macabre as a major influence on his art. The Canadian artist was selected as Canada's official representative at the 2007 Venice Biennale of Visual Art. He has been featured in exhibitions at New York's Artists Space, Deitch Projects, and Andrea Rosen Gallery. Learn more.


Anders, Glen (1889 - 1981)
Theater
Actor
'21CC

Anders made his start in Vaudeville, working his way to a New York stage debut in the play Just Around the Corner in 1919-the same year that he began three years of study at Columbia College. He performed on Broadway for over thirty years, appearing in three Pulitzer Prize-winning plays: Hell Bent for Heaven (1924) by Hatcher Hughes, They Knew What They Wanted (1924) by Sidney Howard, and Strange Interlude (1928) by Eugene O'Neill. Learn more.


Anderson, Laurie (1947 - )
Music, Visual Arts
Performance Artist, Composer
'69BC, '72SOA

Anderson studied Art History at Barnard and earned an MFA in sculpture at the School of the Arts. Although she has enjoyed some popular music success, she is best known for her films and performances, such as the six-hour United States I-IV, which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1983, and her 1986 film Home of the Brave. In 1994, Anderson staged a multimedia tour adapted from a retrospective of her work, Stories from the Nerve Bible. A stint as NASA's first performance artist in residence resulted in the performance, The End of the Moon (2004). In 2005, she received an honorary doctorate from Columbia University, where she has taught master classes. Learn more.


Antin, Mary (1881 - 1949)
Literature
Writer
1902TC, 1904BC

Mary Antin emigrated from Russia to Boston with her family at the age of 13; five years later, she was a published American author. With the aid of Jewish philanthropist Lina Hecht, Antin used letters written to her uncle over her nine thousand mile journey to write From Plotzk to Boston in 1899. Antin also wrote a number of essays and stories. In 1912, she published The Promised Land, an autobiographical account an immigrant's conflict between rigid tradition and expanded opportunity. During her later years, Antin lectured and advocated for unrestricted immigration policy. Learn more.


Appel, Jacob
Literature
Author
1998M.A., 2000M.Phil, 2009M.D.

Jacob Appel, attorney and physician, is an award-wining writer – of fiction and essays; his fiction has appeared in more than 100 literary journals. Appel won the Boston Review Short Fiction Contest (1998) and first prize in New Millennium Writings’ competition (2004); he won the William Faulkner-William Wisdom short story competition and other writing contests. His essays appeared in The New York Times, New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, San Francisco Chronicle, Providence Journal, Orlando Sentinel and many regional newspapers.

Jacob holds a B.A. and M.A. from Brown University, an M.A., M.Phil, and M.D. from Columbia University, an M.F.A. from NYU, and J.D. from Harvard Law School; he’s admitted to the NYS and Rhode Island Bar. He’s taught at Brown University and Gotham Writers Workshop in New York. He’s also published articles about bioethics, in the Journal of Clinical Ethics, the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, and others.

 

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Armstrong, Charlotte (1905 - 1969)
Literature
Fiction Writer
'25BC

Armstrong is best known for her crime novels The Unsuspected (1946), Mischief (1950) and A Dram of Poison (1956), though she published nearly thirty titles in over thirty years as a fiction writer. She received the Mystery Writers of America Award for best novel in 1956 and for best short story in 1958. She also authored two Broadway plays, wrote for television's Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and adapted several of her works for film, such as The Unsuspected (1947) and Mischief (re-titled Don't Bother to Knock, 1952). Learn more.


Aronson, Henry (1956 - )
Performing Arts
Conductor, Arranger, Composer, Instrumentalist
'78CC

Henry Aronson is the music director and conductor of Rock of Ages on Broadway. Also on Broadway, he was music director for Grease, The Times They Are A-Changin, In My Life, Little Shop of Horrors, Rent, Rocky Horror Show and Starmites; associate conductor of Cry Baby, Good Vibrations, Parade, Saturday Night Fever, Mail and Prince of Central Park; and conductor of Tarzan and The Who's Tommy, as well as conducting the Radio City Christmas Spectacular (N.Y.C.). Off-Broadway, he was music director of King Lear at the Public Theater (with Kevin Kline), Once Around the Sun (Zipper Theater) and 3 Guys Naked From the Waist Down (Minetta Lane). He is Adjunct Professor of Music Theory at Pace University, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences. He orchestrated several seasons of Baryshnikov & Co. and created the G & S ballet score for Pirates!, with choreographer Daryl Gray, which premiered at the Queensland Ballet and has been performed worldwide. He is currently writing music and lyrics for the new musical Loveless Texas, in collaboration with his wife Cailín Heffernan.

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Ashbery, John (1927 - )
Literature
Poet, Critic, Editor
'51GSAS

Ashbery has written over twenty books of poetry since 1956, when W.H. Auden selected Some Trees for the Yale Younger Poets Series. Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975) won the literary "triple crown," the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the National Book Award. Ashbery was the first English-language poet to win the Grand Prix de Biennales Internationales de Poésie (Brussels). He has received prizes and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets, the Fulbright Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. A former Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets, he currently teaches at Bard College.

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Atterbury, Grosvenor (1869 - 1956)
Architecture
Architect, Urban Planner, Writer
GSAPP

After designing homes for wealthy industrialists, Atterbury became known for adhering to the high same standards in his efforts for workers housing. Atterbury collaborated with Frederick Law Omstead, Jr. on the model community of Forest Hills Gardens, NY. The community's pre-cast concrete panels allowed for the economical construction of multiple units and townhouses. Atterbury's other industrialized housing designs include a community of single-family homes in Worcester, MA (1915-1916) and housing for 40,000 in the new railroad town of Erwin, TN. Learn more.


Auster, Paul (1947 - )
Literature
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry Writer
'69CC, '70GSAS

Auster began his career as a poet, essayist and translator of French literature. He is best known for his philosophical fiction, including a series of experimental detective novels known as the New York Trilogy (City of Glass, 1985; Ghosts, 1986; The Locked Room, 1987). In addition to novels, Auster has published essays, interviews, a memoir, and poetry, including Collected Poems (2004). Among his honors are a PEN Translation Center grant (1977), NEA fellowship for poetry (1979) and creative writing (1985), a PEN/Faulkner Award nomination (1991), and France's Prix Medicis for foreign literature (1993). Learn more.


Avedon, Richard (1923 - 2004)
Visual Arts
Photographer


As a photographer for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, and the first staff photographer for The New Yorker, Avedon's captured otherwise distant personalities such as Jean Genet, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jacques Cousteau, Andy Warhol and Lena Horne. Avedon's work has been featured at the Smithsonian, the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1994, the Whitney Museum exhibited a retrospective of five decades of Avedon's work. He has also published portraiture Nothing Personal (1974), a collaboration with James Baldwin. His many honors include the Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation International Photography Prize (1991) and the International Center of Photography Master of Photography Award (1993). Learn more.


Ax, Emanuel (1948 - )
Music
Pianist
'70CC

In 1974, Emanuel Ax garnered first prize at the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. Five years later, Ax followed by winning the Avery Fisher Prize. Ax has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, and he has won seven Grammy Awards. Ax is noted for his interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schoenberg, and Haydn, as well as his work with cellist Yo Yo Ma. Ax has given world premieres for contemporary artists such as John Adams, Christopher Rouse and Bright Sheng. Learn more.