The National Arts Club is a nonprofit cultural institution founded in 1898 by New York Times critic Charles DeKay to promote public interest in and education about the arts. Since 1906 it has occupied the historic Samuel J. Tilden House on Gramercy Park South, a National Historic Landmark, and was notable from its founding for admitting women to full membership. Though a private club, its exhibitions and roughly 150 annual public programs covering visual art, literature, music, and theater remain free and open to the public. The club maintains a permanent collection of more than 700 artworks spanning American Impressionism to contemporary work, and it has presented the Medal of Honor for artistic achievement since 1906 and the Kesselring Prize for playwriting since 1980.