2026 Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts

Having become a cultural icon over the last five decades, Patti Smith’s career has, according to experts, transcended the limits of the strictly musical to become a multidisciplinary and iconoclastic communicator through different forms of artistic expression such as poetry, photography, performance and video installation. Endowed with extraordinary charisma, Smith has also linked her proposals to her commitment to different political and social causes and is considered an icon of activism and the fight for civil rights.