Tonight in New York at a black-tie gala to be emceed by Steve Heller, the Art Directors Club celebrates the latest inductees to its Hall of Fame, a prestigious group of “innovators who have made significant contributions to art direction and visual communications” that includes Walt Disney, Charles and Ray Eames, and Andy Warhol. The 2011 laureates are: art director and editorial designer Ruth Ansel; painter, illustrator, and chairman of the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program at the School of Visual Arts Marshall Arisman (who will receive the ADC’s Educator Award); creative wizard John C. Jay, a partner and executive creative director at Wieden+Kennedy; and filmmaker and commercial director Joe Pytka. And that’s not all! The one, the only Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, will receive the ADC Manship Medallion “in special recognition of curatorial excellence.” And the Hall of Fame fun continues after tonight’s bash (which will benefit ADC education programs): on Tuesday, November 15, Heller will reprise his M.C. duties as the moderator of a conversation with Ansel and Arisman at the ADC Gallery, where an exhibition featuring the work of the 2011 ADC Hall of Fame laureates is on view through December 2.

Pictured clockwise from top: Ansel, Pytka, Arisman, Antonelli, and Jay