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historical notes
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Peggy Cooper Cafritz (1947-2018) was born in Mobile, Alabama, and grew up in the Jim Crow South. She was a trailblazer who co-founded the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in 1974, which is now an incubator for generations of minority artists.
Cooper Cafritz was also prominent collector and champion of Black art. She collected and supported the work of many African and African American artists such as Jacob Lawrence, Kara Walker, El Anatsui, Kerry James Marshall, and Kehinde Wiley. She amassed one of the largest private collections of African-American art in the country. In 2009, a fire destroyed more than 300 pieces of art that she had spent years collecting in her eight-bedroom estate in the Kent neighborhood of northwest Washington, D.C. Despite facing several health issues, Cooper Cafritz remained a patron and collector until her death in 2018. |
