Cafritz Collection of African and African American Art Destroyed in Fire

The Washington DC mansion of Peggy Cafritz recently was consumed by fire. So much so, Ms. Cafritz refers to the property as the "Ruins". According to the NY Times, Ms. Cafrtiz has been a long time collector of African and African American art. The African and African American collection was said to include over 300 items of art, sculpture and pictures she collected over the last 20 years. Many of the items within the collection were purchased directly from the artists.

Ms Cafritz is now in the process of dealing with insurance and fire inspectors. The home was valued at $5.2 million. The value of the contents or the collection was not published and perhaps has not yet been valued.

The NY Times states The works of 19th- and 20th-century painters like Edward Mitchell Bannister, Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden hung amid contemporary work by artists like Hank Willis Thomas (see image), Nick Cave, Kara Walker and Kerry James Marshall. Virtually everything was destroyed in the blaze that gutted the house on July 29, while she and her son were on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard.“I had a wonderful picture,” Ms. Cafritz began, on the verge of a reverie about one of her favorites, and then she paused. “It’s gone. It’s gone. No more pictures, you know.”

The article continues The destruction of the collection is being mourned in museums and galleries too, particularly among connoisseurs of contemporary African-American and African art. Thelma Golden, director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, praising Ms. Cafritz’s “unique eye and incredibly refined aesthetic,” called it “a great loss.” Jack Shainman, the New York gallery owner, lamented the destruction of “a singular vision.” Kinshasha Holman Conwill, the deputy director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, saw the collection for the first time a week before it burned. “It felt like a little bit of heaven,” Ms. Conwill said of the house, adding that the art “was visually exquisite, but it was also lived-with art,” art that was clearly part of a “committed life.”

To read the full NY Times article, click HERE.