Kass will receive an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree at Carnegie Mellon University’s 2025 Commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 11, in Gesling Stadium.
Deborah Kass (BFA ’74) is one of four recipients being recognized for contributions to business, the arts, research and engineering at Carnegie Mellon University’s 2025 Commencement ceremony. “It is a CMU tradition to award honorary degrees to exemplary leaders whose lives and work inspire our community. This year’s recipients have profoundly impacted our world,” said CMU President Farnam Jahanian.
Sal Khan, the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, will be the Commencement speaker and receive an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. CMU alumnus Edward Feigenbaum, the Kumagai Professor of Computer Science Emeritus at Stanford University, and Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel Corporation, will also receive Honorary Doctor of Science and Technology degrees.
Kass is an artist whose work examines the intersection of art history, popular culture and the self. Kass’ work is in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, Whitney Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Jewish Museum, Museum of Fine Art, Boston, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Fogg/Harvard Museum, The Dallas Museum of Art, as well as numerous other museums and private collections. It has been shown nationally and internationally, including at the Venice Biennale, the Istanbul Biennale and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne.
Kass’ beloved monumental sculpture OY/YO is permanently installed in front of the Brooklyn Museum, the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University and the Weitzman Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. The Andy Warhol Museum presented “Deborah Kass: Before and Happily Ever After, A Mid-Career Retrospective” in 2012 with a catalogue published by Rizzoli with essays by Griselda Pollock, Irving Sandler, Robert Storr and John Waters, among others. Linda Nochlin, Robert Rosenblum and Maurice Berger have written extensively on her work.
In 2024, Kass was honored by the Albert Einstein Montefiore Women’s Committee Trailblazer award. In 2021 she received the Alumni Achievement Award from Carnegie Mellon University. In 2018, she was inducted into The National Academy and was named the cultural honoree at The Jewish Museum in 2017. She was honored in 2016 with the Passionate Artist Award by the Neuberger Museum of Art, and in 2014 she was inducted into the New York Foundation for the Arts Hall of Fame.
She has served on the boards of the Sharpe Walentas Studio Program and the Andy Warhol Foundation.
“Deborah Kass’s visionary ability to bridge personal and cultural narratives makes her an inspiring figure for our students and a deeply resonant choice for recognition by the broader CMU community at this year’s ceremony,” said Head of School Charlie White. “We couldn’t be more proud to see her remarkable contributions — bold, irreverent, and unwavering — honored with this degree.”
Deborah Kass: Currently on View
“The Art History Paintings” 1989-1992, February 19- March 29, 2025, Salon 94, NYC
“Engaging with History: Works from the Collection”, The Jewish Museum, NYC
“She Said, She Said”, Akron Museum, Akron OH
“Tender Loving Care: Contemporary Art from the Collection“, Museum Fine Arts Boston
“The Block Collects”, Block Museum, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
“feel good spins for feel bad times”, NFT project, ARSNL, NY
“Two For Sondheim”, New York City Center