{"id":4548,"date":"2021-11-09T19:06:26","date_gmt":"2021-11-09T19:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.top10pokersites.net\/?p=4548"},"modified":"2023-08-21T18:15:44","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T18:15:44","slug":"facts-about-the-dogs-playing-poker-painting-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.top10pokersites.net\/blog\/facts-about-the-dogs-playing-poker-painting-series","title":{"rendered":"Dogs Playing Poker – Interesting Facts & History of the Paintings"},"content":{"rendered":"
Regardless of whether you are an art lover or an avid poker player<\/a>, you must have come across the famous painting known as by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge<\/strong>. <\/p>\n The painting has been featured in the media numerous times, appearing in The Simpsons, the Police Academy movie, The Thomas Crown Affair, etc. \u2014 and even in Snoop Dogg\u2019s music video What\u2019s My Name. <\/p>\n While it might not be Da Vinci\u2019s Mona Lisa, there\u2019s obviously something so fascinating about it that has kept captivating people ever since 1903. <\/p>\n Today we\u2019re going to dive into its long history to try to uncover what\u2019s behind its charm!<\/p>\n Coolidge was an American painter who became known for his Dogs Playing Poker paintings<\/a>. He was born in 1844. The artist had no formal training but had so much talent that he started selling illustrations in his early 20s. <\/p>\n Humour was a big part of his life, so all his drawings were always made to create a comic effect, including the one we\u2019re discussing in this article. <\/p>\n Also, you must have taken a photo in one of the photo stand-ins at a carnival at least once. In case you are not sure what we\u2019re talking about here, these are basically paintings with openings where people can place their heads to become life-size caricatures. An interesting fact about Coolidge is that he is actually considered the creator of these popular photo stand-ins.<\/p>\n The painting everybody recognizes as Dogs Playing Poker<\/strong> is actually called \u201cA Friend in Need<\/em>\u201d (shown above) and is a part of a series of 16 paintings. Coolidge painted this series for an advertising agency called Brown & Bigelow<\/a>, as a part of their campaign for cigars.<\/p>\n This famous painting, together with the others (Poker Sympathy, Pinched with Four Aces, Stranger in Camp, A Bold Bluff, One to Tie Two to Win, Poker Game, etc.<\/em>) from the same collection, was reproduced on posters, calendars, and prints and dispersed across America.<\/p>\n Interestingly enough, although the whole series is called Dogs Playing Poker, only 9 of the paintings actually stay true to that name, depicting various poker games<\/a> played by dogs.<\/p>\n Because the paintings were commissioned for a commercial purpose, critics quickly labeled them as kitsch. The entire series was joked about in the artistic circles and discarded as no more than a sight-gag. What\u2019s more, a whole press release was issued by William Hennessey<\/strong>, the director of the Chrysler Museum of Art in Virginia, in 2002, stating he was trying to get the series of paintings for the museum as a prank.<\/p>\nWho Is Cassius Marcellus Coolidge?<\/h2>\n\n
What You May Not Know About \u201cDogs Playing Poker\u201d <\/h2>\n
# Series Not Welcomed by the Critics<\/h3>\n