Awards
Tennessee is home to many outstanding folk artists who have mastered, preserved, and passed on their traditional knowledge. A number of Tennesseans have received special recognition from both federal and state programs for lifetime dedication and accomplishments in the folklife. Their contributions to our culture are honored and remembered through these heritage awards, and sources about their lives and work, linked by clicking their names below, provide a sampling of the best of Tennessee’s traditional arts.
National Heritage Fellowship
An award presented annually since 1982 to about a dozen Americans by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Tennessee Folklife Heritage Award
An award presented every other year since 2001 as part of the Governor’s Arts Awards, a program of the Tennessee Arts Commission. The award honors “long-term achievements within art forms that are rooted in the traditional or ethnic culture of Tennessee.”
