Fired Up! Ready to Go! Finding Beauty, Demanding Equity: An African American Life in Art. The Collections of Peggy Cooper Cafritz

After decades of art collecting, prominent Washington D.C.–based activist, philanthropist, and founder of the august Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Peggy Cooper Cafritz had amassed one of the most important collections of work by artists of color in the country. But in 2009, the more than three hundred works that comprised this extraordinary collection were destroyed in the largest residential fire in Washington, D.C. history. The pioneering collection included art by Kara Walker, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, Yinka Shonibare, Nick Cave, Kehinde Wiley, Barkley L. Hendricks, Lorna Simpson, and Carrie Mae Weems, among many others.

This beautifully illustrated volume features 200 of the works that were lost, along with works that she has collected since the fire, as well as important contributions by preeminent curators and artists.

Peggy Cooper Cafritz is a Washington D.C.–based activist, philanthropist, art collector, and cofounder of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Njideka Akunyili Crosby is a Nigerian-born, Los Angeles–based visual artist, and a recipient of the 2017 MacArthur Fellowship. LaToya Ruby Frazier is a photographer, video artist, and educator, and is a 2015 MacArthur Fellow. Thelma Golden is director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem. Titus Kaphar is a visual artist, and cofounder of Elm City Postmasters project in New Haven, Connecticut. Simone Leigh is a New York–based artist and curator exploring issues surrounding Black female subjectivity. Kerry James Marshall is a Chicago–based artist, educator and author who focuses on the history of Black identity and the historical exclusion of Black subjects from the artistic canon. Uri McMillan is a cultural historian and Associate Professor of Performance Studies in the Departments of English and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Tschabalala Self is a New York–based painter examining the nuances of Black femme identity. Jack Shainman is one of New York City’s leading art gallerists. Hank Willis Thomas is a New York–based artist and curator exploring identity, history, and popular culture. William Villalongo is a painter, writer and curator, and an Assistant Professor at the Cooper Union School of Art.