President Barack Obama congratulates architect Maya Lin after presenting her with the 2009 National Medal of Arts on Thursday. (Charles Dharapak/Associated Press)

Singer Bob Dylan and director Clint Eastwood were among a group of 19 U.S. artists honoured Thursday with the National Medal of Arts.

Neither was at the ceremony held at the White House and hosted by President Barack Obama.

Eastwood's films are "essays in individuality, hard truths and the essence of what it means to be American," the White House said in a tribute to the superstar actor-director.

Eastwood won an Oscar for directing Million Dollar Baby and his iconic performances include Dirty Harry and more recently, Gran Torino.

Dylan, the 1960s troubadour who wrote Blowin' In the Wind and The Times They are A-Changin', most recently released a Christmas album. He was hailed as "an icon of youthful rebellion and poetic sensitivity."

Soprano Jessye Norman was recognized for "broadening contemporary operatic repertoire" with performances ranging from Aida to spirituals to jazz and classical.

Others who earned honours:

• John Williams, who composed music for Star Wars and dozens of other Hollywood productions.
• Maya Lin, an architect who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.
• Elie Wiesel, an activist and writer about the Holocaust who also is a Nobel Prize winner.
• Rita Moreno, a Puerto Rican-born star of stage and screen who has won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards.
• Ted Sorensen, a speechwriter for former president John F. Kennedy.
• Milton Glaser, a designer best known for his "I Love New York" logo.
• Joseph P. Riley, Jr., mayor of Charleston, S.C.
• Frank Stella, an abstract painter and sculptor.
• Robert A. Caro, who wrote biographies of Robert Moses and U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson.
• Annette Gordon-Reed, an historian who researched president Thomas Jefferson's relationship with his slaves in Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy.
• David Levering Lewis, a historian who won Pulitzer prizes in 1994 and 2001 for his two-volume biography of W.E.B. Du Bois.
• Philippe de Montebello, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
• Albert H. Small, a philanthropist who collects early American manuscripts.

Two arts schools, Ohio's Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the country's oldest continuously operating conservatory, and New York's School of American Ballet, the dance program co-founded by George Balanchine, also were honoured.

The National Medal of the Arts is a lifetime achievement award and the most prestigious arts honour given by the U.S. government.

With files from The Associated Press