Dreams of This Future: The Collection of Peggy Cooper Cafritz
August 19, 2026–February 28, 2027

This exhibition 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 and her lifelong commitment to artists and their practices. An arts patron, educator, and civil rights activist, Cafritz bequeathed the majority of her art collection to the Studio Museum and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, a public school in Washington, DC, which she cofounded in 1974. While the Museum has shown dozens of works from this collection in the years since receiving the gift, this exhibition is the first to tell a story of Cafritz as an art collector.

Artists in the exhibition include: Nina Chanel Abney, Derrick Adams, Laylah Ali, ruby onyinyechi amanze, Philip Kwame Apagya, Alexandre Arrechea, Radcliffe Bailey, John Bankston, Sanford Biggers, Diedrick Brackens, Nick Cave, Elizabeth Colomba, Gregory Coates, Noah Davis, Emory Douglas, Derek Fordjour, Hassan Hajjaj, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Kay Hassan, Samuel Levi Jones, Titus Kaphar, Gwendolyn C. Knight, Jas Knight, Marcia Kure, Jerome Lagarrigue, Deana Lawson, Simone Leigh, Nate Lewis, Turiya Magadlela, Mustafa Maluka, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Jackie Nickerson, Arcmanoro Niles, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Kambui Olujimi, Chinedu Felix Osuchukwu, Jennifer Packer, Deborah Roberts, Rozeal., Tschabalala Self, Alexandria Smith, Stan Squirewell, Devin Troy Strother, Hank Willis Thomas, William Villalongo, and Saya Woolfalk.