Dogs Playing Poker Painting Meaning

Coolidge s earliest explorations of dog paintings were made for cigar boxes.
Dogs playing poker painting meaning. In his most famous painting above a bulldog is passing a card to his friend a clearly unsportsmanlike action. The writer is satirical in that he has used dogs to represent men in his paintings. All eighteen paintings in the overall series feature anthropomorphized dogs but the eleven in which dogs are seated around a card table have become well known in the united states as. Them playing poker games is as normal as thinking that the clocks and painting within the paintings would have been created by canines also.
Coolidge s involvment with the masonic lodge in his town of antwerp new york is part of his official biography. The painter cassius marcellus coolidge 1844 1934 created a series of paintings of these dogs playing poker beginning in 1903. It is a painting that shows a lot of leisure as the dogs play poker. Dogs playing poker no elitist shaming or social innuendo.
The art work depicts seven dogs playing poker in a light blue room. You simply get what you see. They were used for promotional printed items by the firm brown bigelow. Dogs playing poker is not one painting but a series.
His earliest paintings of dogs playing poker dating back to the 1870s decorated cigar boxes and served as a way for tobacco companies to distinguish themselves from their near identical competitors. The dogs even have dogs as pets confirming there is no other world out there. In fact to true dogs playing poker aficionados the freemason connection is old hat. But it wasn t until 1903 when coolidge signed a contract with the minnesota based promotional firm brown bigelow that his success was assured.
The series includes the artist s original poker game 1894 painting along with 16 other oil paintings commissioned in 1903 by brown bigelow to advertise cigars and an additional 1910 painting. The writer used seven dogs as a symbol of men in the society especially the middle class and working men. It s not commonly known but dogs playing poker by cassius marcellus coolidge refers to not just one painting but 18 of them.