NEW YORK.- On Monday, October 15, Kareen Rispal, Cultural Counselor of the Embassy of France, will confer upon Richard Kendall and Raphael Rubinstein the Order of Arts and Letters, in recognition of their contribution to the promotion of French culture.

Richard Kendall, Curator-at-Large for the Clark Art Institute, is a celebrated art historian, critic and curator who is especially well known for his expertise on French Impressionists, particularly Edgar Degas and Paul Cézanne. He has curated numerous exhibitions including “Unknown Monet,” a rare show of the artist’s drawings, pastels and sketch books, that offered new insights into the artist’s work. Kendall was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Art Criticism for “Degas: Beyond Impressionism” (an exhibition at National Gallery, London, and Art Institute of Chicago in 1996) and he received a 2004 Peabody award for his PBS documentary, “Degas and the Dance.”

Raphael Rubinstein, Senior Editor at Art in America and Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Houston, is a fervent francophile who studied French literature, contemporary art and philosophy in Paris. He has been a strong proponent of postwar French contemporary art, eloquently arguing that it ranks alongside the best in contemporary art. An accomplished poet and writer, his translation of Lettre à Antionio Saura, by Marcel Cohen, has been critically acclaimed (In Search of a Lost Ladino, Ibis Editions, 2006). Rubinstein was awarded the John McCarron New Writing in Arts Criticism Award in 1992.

The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of the Arts and Letters) was created in 1957 to recognize eminent artists and writers, as well as individuals who have contributed to the recognition of French culture in the world. The Order is given out twice annually to only a few hundred people worldwide. Several Americans have received the award, including Paul Auster, Ornette Coleman, Agnes Gund, Marilyn Horne, Jim Jarmusch, Richard Meier, Robert Paxton, Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman.