Dogs Playing Poker: Beyond Art, Behind Coolidge CM Coolidge, known for her "dogs playing poker," was a brilliant man with innovative ideas and an entrepreneurial instinct about art. Born in a small town in upstate New York to Quaker parents, he did not received a formal academic education, but take some courses in Business College late in his life. When he was 18 or 19, he took a few lessons in portrait painting, with an accounting course a few years later. His love Reading leads to strong self-formation. At age 19 he began making cartoons for newspapers in surrounding neighborhoods. A few years later, while living in Rochester, NY, he wrote and illustrated a weekly column.
Coolidge loved people and was quite social. Around the age of 20 or 21, he was elected superintendent for one of the local school districts. Later, he was elected town clerk. Around the same time, he became active in the Masonic Lodge. Coolidge had high plans for himself, although most of its activities did not work or were of short duration. When he was 27 or 28, he started the first bank in the city of Antwerp, NY. He worked there for a short period, then became a pharmacist. It is, however, did not hold his interest for long. And a year later, he founded the first newspaper in his hometown. Unfortunately, this was not a little later.
Between jobs and in his spare time, he would have comics for newspapers field and make caricatures of people. One of his many projects was developed writing a comic opera on the elimination of mosquitoes. Interestingly, it was produced, but not real money. He also applied for a patent for the collection of fares on street cars. Although, again, nothing happened to him.
The effort that is consistent, he clung to his love of comics and art. He began to make paintings of dogs around the turn of the century. Generally, they have been purchased by companies and used cigars as gifts. Coolidge's big break came when the advertising agency Brown & Bigelow approached him to make a series of paintings that will be used on calendars and other memorabilia. That was in 1903. At that time, is when his infamous poker dogs painting began.
Over the next ten years, Coolidge created 16 paintings of dogs - seven dogs which depicts a game of pool. The other nine were dogs around a poker table. By putting the dogs in art, but in a situation familiar to Americans from the middle class, not only he anthropomorphic, but created an instant kitsch craze. It certainly helped the cigar and civilian companies for which he worked. Some of his paintings sold for dog original 2000 U.S. $ U.S. dollar $ 10,000 - an astonishing amount for the time.
For years, his images of dogs playing poker, drinking, smoking, and basically in trouble honored bachelor pads, bars, taverns and around the country. The scenes always evoked feelings of something American and something modern. Recently, a pair of paintings entitled A Bold Bluff dog poker, and Waterloo, which should go for $ 30,000 to $ 60,000, surprised the art world by selling for $ 590.00 for the pair.
More meaningful for a friend in need:
A few theories about his art to give more meaning than what initially meets the eye. One theory states that the painting of a friend in need is of great significance. "Coolidge's painting was used during the Second World War to boost the morale of Dutch citizens. The dog with the cigar being Churchill giving America help (on the left side), which goes unnoticed. Russia (the dog the left) is trying to attract U.S. attention, while Hitler's ears (the dog with the hose and the "big" in front of the clock) watches with concern. "(1)
Amateur Poker Jim McManus said: "[In] A friend in need, the blatant cheating refers to the early nineteenth century, Mississippi.
Posted on July 9, 2010.
