Dogs Playing Poker Painting Meaning

In his most famous painting above a bulldog is passing a card to his friend a clearly unsportsmanlike action.

Dogs playing poker painting meaning. Dogs playing poker is not one painting but a series. The painter cassius marcellus coolidge 1844 1934 created a series of paintings of these dogs playing poker beginning in 1903. 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. 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. Dogs playing poker no elitist shaming or social innuendo. 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.

Then in 1903 the 59 year old artist started working for the. 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. They were used for promotional printed items by the firm brown bigelow. In fact to true dogs playing poker aficionados the freemason connection is old hat.

The goat riding ritual is evidently a well known fraternal rite within freemasonry. Coolidge s earliest explorations of dog paintings were made for cigar boxes. 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. But it wasn t until 1903 when coolidge signed a contract with the minnesota based promotional firm brown bigelow that his success was assured.

It is a painting that shows a lot of leisure as the dogs play poker. The art work depicts seven dogs playing poker in a light blue room. You simply get what you see.