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Dogs Playing Poker

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Poker Game, oil on canvas, 1894

Dogs Playing Poker, by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, refers collectively to an 1894 painting, a 1903 series of sixteen oil paintings commissioned by Brown & Bigelow to advertise cigars, and a 1910 painting.[1][unreliable source?] 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 examples of kitsch art in home decoration.

Depictions and reenactments of the series have appeared in many films, television shows, theater productions, and other popular culture art forms. Critic Annette Ferrara has described Dogs Playing Poker as "indelibly burned into ... the American collective-schlock subconscious ... through incessant reproduction on all manner of pop ephemera".[2]

The first painting, Coolidge's 1894 Poker Game, sold for $658,000 at a 2015 auction.[3]

Description

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The majority of the paintings ascribed to the Dogs Playing Poker moniker consist of anthropomorphized versions of dogs sitting around a poker table playing poker. The dogs presented are usually larger breeds like collies, Great Danes, St. Bernards, and general mastiffs.[4] Humans do not appear in any of the paintings, and female dogs rarely appear.[4][5] According to James McManus of The New York Times, the dogs are depicted as "upper-middle-class lawyers and businessmen", as they drink and smoke at the table.[5] The dogs sit on leather chairs in dimly lit rooms, adorned by a ceiling lamp.[4] Some of the paintings tell a story.[4] For example, in the painting A Bold Bluff, a St. Bernard is holding a pair of deuces, and the other dogs are questioning whether to call his bluff.[4] In the painting Waterloo, the same dogs did not call the St. Bernard's bluff, and he uses both paws to grab his winnings.[4] Another painting in the series, titled A Friend in Need, depicts a bulldog slipping an ace under the table to the dog sitting next to him.[6] Common themes throughout the Dogs Playing Poker series are deception, mistrust, and confrontation.[4]

Not every painting within the series depicts dogs playing poker.[6] Some paintings depict dogs performing other human activities, such as playing baseball and football.[6] In the painting Riding a Goat, a blindfolded dog sits atop a goat for the amusement of a royal couple.[4]

Coolidge paintings

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Pinched with Four Aces (1903)
A Friend in Need (1903)
Poker Sympathy (1903)
Sitting up with a Sick Friend (c. 1905)
A Waterloo, 1906

The title of Coolidge's original 1894 painting is Poker Game.

The titles in the Brown & Bigelow series are:

  • A Bachelor's Dog – reading the mail
  • A Bold Bluff  – poker (originally titled Judge St. Bernard Stands Pat on Nothing)[7]
  • Breach of Promise Suit – testifying in court
  • A Friend in Need (1903) – poker, cheating
  • Pinched with Four Aces (1903) – poker
  • New Year's Eve in Dogville – ballroom dancing
  • One to Tie Two to Win – baseball
  • Pinched with Four Aces – poker, illegal gambling
  • Poker Sympathy (1903) – poker
  • Post Mortem – poker, camaraderie
  • The Reunion – smoking and drinking, camaraderie
  • Riding the Goat – Masonic initiation
  • Sitting up with a Sick Friend (1905) – poker, gender relations
  • Stranger in Camp – poker, camping
  • Ten Miles to a Garage – travel, car trouble, teamwork
  • A Waterloo (1906) – poker (originally titled Judge St. Bernard Wins on a Bluff)[7]

These were followed in 1910 by a similar painting, Looks Like Four of a Kind. Other Coolidge paintings featuring anthropomorphized dogs include Kelly Pool, which shows dogs playing kelly pool.

Some of the compositions in the series are modeled on paintings of human card-players by such artists as Caravaggio, Georges de La Tour, and Paul Cézanne.[7]

On February 15, 2005, the originals of A Bold Bluff and Waterloo were auctioned as a pair to an undisclosed buyer for US $590,400.[8] The previous top price for a Coolidge was $74,000.[9] In 2015, Poker Game sold for $658,000, currently the highest price paid for a Coolidge.

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  • In the TV sitcom Cheers, Sam Malone likes the paintings (in particular one of Dogs Playing Blackjack), while his lover, Diane Chambers, hates them. Sam says that he sees something new every time he looks at it.
  • The cover of the 1981 album, Moving Pictures by Rush, features A Friend in Need as one of the three pictures being moved.
  • In the 1984 play The Foreigner, a character complains that she doesn't want to be in her motel room because there is a "Damn picture on the wall of some dogs playin' poker."
  • The animated television series The Simpsons has made several references to the paintings, such as in "Treehouse of Horror IV" (1993) when Homer is driven to screaming insanity simply by looking at the surrealness of the painting.[10]
  • The music video for Snoop Dogg's 1993 song, "What's My Name", depicts dogs playing craps while smoking cigars and wearing sunglasses.
  • The 1998 season four episode "Sinking Ship" of the TV series NewsRadio spoofs the 1997 film Titanic. As the characters are shown fleeing the sinking ship/broadcasting studio they dump famous artworks but hold on to a Dogs Playing Poker, which a character claims is a "great picture".
  • In the 1999 film The Thomas Crown Affair, Banning believes she finds a stolen Claude Monet painting in Crown's house. On expert examination it turns out to be a fake painted over a copy of Poker Sympathy, a Dogs Playing Poker canvas.
  • In a 2000 episode of the TV series That '70s Show, "Hunting", Dogs Playing Poker is parodied by the characters taking the places of the dogs.
  • In an episode of Animaniacs, a young Pablo Picasso's artistic frustration is demonstrated by his producing a DPP painting.
  • In an episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog, Courage goes into a DPP painting and picks up an untouched card hand. He laughs and puts it down, which shocks the other dogs upon seeing that the hand is a royal flush. Courage is then kicked out of the painting by one of the dogs.
  • In the 2006 Family Guy episode "Saving Private Brian", Mayor West is discovered playing poker with dogs. In the episode "Road to Rhode Island", Stewie comments on the Dogs Playing Poker paintings hanging on a wall, and suggests that since Jesus is alone in one of the other paintings, the dogs should invite him to their card game.
  • In the 2006 film Barnyard, there is a scene with some dogs from the farm playing poker while a mouse paints A Friend in Need while watching them.
  • In the 2009 film Up, a recreation of the series with the dogs from the movie is briefly shown.
  • In the TV series Boy Meets World, Eric is cleaning out the garage when he finds one of the Dogs Playing Poker paintings, and shows his parents.
  • In the 2016 film, The Accountant, the paintings are discussed by the lead characters. Later, a copy of A Friend in Need is used as a cover to hide a Jackson Pollock painting.
  • In the 2020 Ray Donovan season seven episode "Passport and a Gun", Jim Sullivan rewards young Ray for his successful debut as a debt collector with a valued and framed copy of A Friend in Need.
  • In 2022 the gambling company Bodog made a series of Poker Masterclasses called Pokerdogs. [11]
  • In the 2022 film Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, during the montage showing where Puss loses eight of his nine lives, he is shown cheating in a card game with some dogs playing poker, which gets him presumably mauled by the angry pack.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Dogs Playing Poker". Ooo Woo – Complete Dog Resource. 2008. Archived from the original on April 11, 2017. Retrieved September 1, 2006.
  2. ^ Ferrara, Annette (April 2008). "Lucky Dog!". Ten by Ten Magazine. Chicago: Tenfold Media. Archived from the original on March 27, 2008. Retrieved September 1, 2006.
  3. ^ "That Dogs Playing Poker Painting Just Sold for Over $650,000". GQ.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harris, Moira F. (March 1997). "It's a dogs' world: According to Coolidge". Antiques & Collecting Magazine. Vol. 102, no. 1. Pioneer Communications, Inc. pp. 26–30. ISSN 1084-0818.
  5. ^ a b McManus, James (December 3, 2005). "Play It Close to the Muzzle and Paws on the Table". The New York Times. Retrieved May 23, 2024.
  6. ^ a b c Arn, Jackson (June 6, 2018). "Why This Painting of Dogs Playing Poker Has Endured for over 100 Years". Artsy. Retrieved May 23, 2024.
  7. ^ a b c McManus, James. "Play It Close to the Muzzle and Paws on the Table", The New York Times (December 3, 2005).
  8. ^ "A New York auction offers artistic treats for dog lovers", San Jose Mercury News (Feb 11, 2005).
  9. ^ "'Dogs Playing Poker' sell for $590K". CNN Money. February 16, 2005. Retrieved September 11, 2006.
  10. ^ "Dogs Playing Poker in the Simpsons — DogsPlayingPoker.org". www.dogsplayingpoker.org.
  11. ^ "'Pokerdogs'". Bodog (in Portuguese). 30 June 2022. Archived from the original on 2023-02-03. Retrieved 2023-01-20.
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