NEW YORK, NY.- United States Artists (USA) announced today the names of the first artists to receive USA Fellowships. As USA Fellows, each will receive an unrestricted grant of $50,000 to support his or her creative work. In its inaugural year United States Artists will award 50 USA Fellowships to a total of 54 artists, with four fellowships recognizing artists’ collaboratives. Expert panels selected the winners from among 300 applicants representing every artistic discipline and 43 states. USA is a new organization dedicated to providing direct support for living artists as an investment in the nation’s creativity.

The 2006 USA Fellows represent a broad range of artistic practices, with recipients in the fields of architecture & design, crafts & traditional arts, dance, literature, media, music, theater arts, and visual arts. They come from all career stages, including emerging artists, those at mid-career, as well as individuals who have achieved master status in their fields. The youngest of the USA Fellows is Sterlin Harjo, a 26 year-old Seminole and Creek filmmaker from Norman, OK whose short films explore contemporary Native American life; the eldest, Ali Akbar Khan, lives and teaches in San Anselmo, CA, and at 83 is one of the most respected classical Indian musicians in the world. USA Fellows include performance-legend Meredith Monk and guitarist Bill Frisell, who are being honored for a body of work that stretches over decades, while others, like puppeteer Basil Twist, assemblage artist Anna Sew Hoy, and cartoonist Chris Ware are important new talents with rising promise.

“USA’s goal is to fuel innovation in our culture by investing in creativity at its source: our nation’s finest artists,” said Susan V. Berresford, USA board chair and president of the Ford Foundation. “Our 2006 USA Fellows represent the full spectrum of artistic excellence and the broad array of talent that abounds in all US communities. This is exactly what we hoped to achieve when we founded this program. It is what USA, with its multidisciplinary scope and national reach, is designed to recognize.”

The 2006 USA Fellows will be honored this evening at a special event, hosted by arts leaders and philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad and Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center. Jazz legend Wynton Marsalis and actor, director and philanthropist Leonard Nimoy are set to make special appearances. Target, Katherine Farley and Jerry I. Speyer, and American Airlines provided generous underwriting for the celebration.

Through a nomination process, the USA Fellowships are open to the more than 2 million artists living in the United States. Awards are given annually across a broad array of disciplines. This year’s USA Fellowships include one in architecture and design; six in crafts and traditional arts; four in dance; nine in literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry); six in media (audio, film, radio, video); five in music; seven in theater arts, and twelve in the visual arts.