Dreams of This Future: The Collection of Peggy Cooper Cafritz

Dreams of This Future brings together a selection of works from a historic gift to the Studio Museum in Harlem by Peggy Cooper Cafritz (1947–2018) to celebrate her legacy as an advocate for the arts. A patron, educator, and civil rights activist, Cafritz built two art collections during her lifetime. The first was largely destroyed in a 2009 fire; the second was amassed in the seven years prior to her death. Both collections spoke to her unyielding commitment to artists of African descent. Voracious in her interests, Cafritz collected across mediums—with paintings, photographs, sculptures, textiles, and works on paper represented in this exhibition—but with a firm commitment to championing artists from the earliest stages of their careers. Work by Titus Kaphar and Deana Lawson is included.