Norman Lear, Television Writer and Producer of “All in the Family”
With four Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, accolades from the Writers Guild of America and a National Medal of Arts from President Clinton, Norman...
Toni Morrison, Nobel Prize-Winning Author
Toni Morrison grew up in a house of African-American storytellers and developed a love for books. After earning a masters degree in English and...
Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), Baroque Painter
Michelangelo Merisi, popularly known as Caravaggio, spearheaded the Baroque movement, and his paintings are acclaimed for their realism and their depiction of the violent,...
William Shakespeare, Playwright, Poet and Actor
“He was not for an age but for all time,” said Ben Jonson in the dedication to William Shakespeare’s 1623 First Folio. It may...
Louis Henri Sullivan, Renowned American Architect
“The skyscraper poet” is how Time magazine referred to Louis Sullivan in 1951. The description holds true today, as Sullivan is widely recognized as...
Jean Renoir, French Filmmaker
Lauded after his death as one of cinema’s greatest directors, Jean Renoir earned comparatively few words of praise during his lifetime. From a childhood...
Cole Porter, Broadway Lyricist and Composer
A talented writer and musician, Porter took Broadway by storm with his piercing wit. “Anything Goes” and “Kiss Me, Kate” are considered classics and...
Stephen Jay Gould, Paleontologist and Science Writer
Renowned for both his revolutionary contributions to evolutionary biology and his ability to make science accessible to the public, Stephen Jay Gould drew upon...
Cornel West, Author, Professor and Hip-Hop Artist
Cornel West, a popular professor of religion at Princeton University, has received widespread notoriety for both his intellectual abilities and his knack for sparking...
Sir Laurence Olivier, Stage and Screen Actor
Considered by many to be the greatest actor of the 20th century, Laurence Olivier changed the landscape of theater and film in his time,...
