A great arts patron

Peggy Cooper Cafritz is an important and avid art collector and patron who nurtured young artists, like Hank Willis Thomas who first met her as a student at the Duke Ellington School. Her support helped him become a highly lauded and successful artist who produces beautiful, compelling, meaningful work. "My work and success is very much connected to her, and her reinvestment in me," Thomas said in the Washington Post today. I admire her devotion to young artists and think of her as a role model for how to contribute to the art life and the life of creative thinking. An invaluable art collection was lost this week when her house burned down. But I have a feeling she'll rebuild the collection and foster many more artists to come.

Image: "Basketball and Chain" by Hank Willis Thomas.