C. M. Coolidge

         

   

 

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Cassius Marcellius Coolidge (1844 - 1934)

He painted the poker playing dogs. Between 1868 and 1872 Coolidge worked as a druggist and a sign painter, founded a bank and a newspaper. He moved from Antwerp N.Y. to Rochester where he started painting dogs in human situations.

Coolidge first paintings were to cigar companies that printed copies of the paintings for give-aways. Later a contract was signed with Brown & Bigelow to turn out huge amounts of these works. They were used in advertising, calendars and prints.

All the paintings in the series feature anthropomorphized dogs, but the nine in which dogs are seated around a card table have become well-known in the United States as examples of manly working-class taste in home decoration.