Gambling on canines

Cassius Marcellus Coolidge is often called the most famous American artist you have never heard of.

'A Waterloo'

Coolidge

'The Poker Game'

Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (1844 –1934) was a man of many parts and professions, but his legacy rests firmly on a few colourful and comic paintings of canines he did more than a century ago.

Born in 1844 in upstate New York, Coolidge was at different times a banker, druggist, writer, inventor, and painter of house numbers and street signs. In 1871, he established his hometown's first newspaper, the Antwerp News. In 1890, he penned King Gaalinipper, a comic opera in three acts, quite possibly the only opera ever written on mosquito menace and eradication!

Coolidge received no formal education in art, but his sketches found their way into a local newspaper by the time he was 20. He was also a ‘lightning cartoonist’ (making quick drawings of people for a fee) and an illustrator of books. As interestingly, he invented ‘Comic Foregrounds’ — cutouts in which people could playfully insert their heads and get photographed.

Dogs playing poker

In 1894, Coolidge painted ‘Poker Game’ featuring four dogs on a card table. Three of the dogs are bespectacled and seated, while the fourth one stands beside the central figure. A hanging shaded lamp casts its light and spell on the incredibly poised protagonists. The standing dog holds a cigarette in his fingers while the central figure has a pipe in his mouth. A cigar casually dangles in the left hand of the dog on the right; three unlit cigars rest on the table. A bottle of whiskey, a half-filled glass, and a few burnt cigar pieces on a well-set tray complete the gripping setting. The expression on the dogs’ faces is incredibly ‘human’. Understandably, this painting was sourced and reproduced by various cigar companies to publicise their products.

In 1903, the advertising firm Brown & Bigelow, duly impressed by the 1894 work, contracted with Coolidge to produce a series of paintings featuring dogs playing poker and/or placed in other various interesting settings. The images would, in turn, be used to create calendars, posters, prints, and other advertising products.

Accordingly, from 1903 to the mid-1910s, Coolidge made a series of 16 oil paintings for Brown & Bigelow, all featuring anthropomorphic dogs. Nine paintings depicted dogs playing cards around a table while others had them dancing in a ballroom; playing baseball; pleading in a court case; leisurely lounging on an armchair; or sitting with a sick friend.

In each of his paintings, Coolidge managed to capture a perfect moment of theatrical tautness. Thanks to the gentle humour and satirical content, delicate play of light and colour and the seamless matching of protagonists with their activities, they became a major hit among art connoisseurs, dog lovers, and the public. The images were not only reproduced in print but also decorated the walls of pool rooms and bathhouses across the country.

Absurd but authentic

Coolidge’s absurdist series of surreal images came to be hailed as ‘the most recognised gambling paintings ever created’ and are remembered to this day.

“The way the artist captures poker emotions so perfectly suggests that Coolidge had spent his fair share of time at the poker tables,” observes Dan O’Callaghan, a professional poker player. “This experience is what gives the paintings that air of authenticity.”

Critic Jackson Arn explains that Coolidge’s dog paintings “belong to that pantheon of artworks that are immediately recognisable to people of all ages and backgrounds, including those who don’t readily admit to enjoying art.” He bemoans that Coolidge himself remains all but unknown today, a noble, neglected pioneer in the proud 20th-century tradition of animal art. Art critic Annette Ferrara goes further to say that Coolidge is ‘the most famous American artist you’ve never heard of.’

A long-time bachelor, Coolidge married in 1909 when he was 64; his bride was 28-year-old Gertrude Kimmell. In 1910, their daughter Marcella Coolidge was born. Coolidge died in 1934, nearing 90. His wife outlived him by 43 years before passing away in 1977, aged 94. Marcella followed them in 2007, aged 97.

While Coolidge’s comical, humanised dogs are commonly seen on ties, shirts, notepads, mousepads, boxes, and tapestries, his original paintings are difficult to come by given the small size of the series. On February 15, 2005, two of Coolidge’s dog paintings titled ‘A Bold Bluff’ and ‘Waterloo’ sold for $590,400 at Doyle New York. In February 2008, Marcella Coolidge offered another of his original paintings titled ‘Only A Pair Of Deuces’ which was lapped up for $193,000. In a 2015 auction, Coolidge’s original ‘1894 Poker Game’ painting sold for $658,000.

Inspired by Landseer

Several observers point out that Coolidge might have derived inspiration for his dog paintings from the famous British artist Landseer’s 1840 oil on canvas titled ‘Laying Down the Law: Trial by Jury’. Often considered the most popular dog painting of the 19th century, it shows a group of dogs in a courtroom. A child prodigy, Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873) was supposed to have produced remarkably accomplished studies of animals when he was just five years old. He rose to become one of the most famous English painters of his generation. At the height of his career in the mid-1830s, there was supposedly a three-year waiting list for his services!

Landseer, who was knighted in 1850, suffered from serious mental illness in his final years. Matters became so difficult that his family was forced to approach authorities to declare him insane in 1872, a year before his death on 1 October 1873. His demise was deeply mourned; shops and houses lowered their blinds, and flags flew half-mast. In December 2013, Landseer's painting of a Newfoundland dog titled ‘Neptune’ got auctioned for a whopping £566,500 ($927,361) at Christie's Victorian & British Art sale.