SET OF 5 x CLASSIC DOG SNOOKER/POOL PRINTS BY ARTHUR SARNOFF**

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A Friend in Need pits a pair of bulldogs against five huge hounds. Who could blame them for slipping helpful cards under the table with their toes? As the most beloved of this series, A Friend In Need is also the one most often misnamed “Dogs Playing Poker.” 3. These paintings gave C.M. Coolidge some fame in his sixties. The works of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Georges de La Tour, and Paul Cézanne are often cited as influences on how Coolidge posed his canine card players. 14. The art elite still give Dogs Playing Poker no respect. These painting, which were commissioned for commercial use, are regarded most often as kitsch, art that is basically bad to the bone. Recounting the highbrow opinion of these pieces, Poker News’s Martin Harris explained, “For some the paintings represent the epitome of kitsch or lowbrow culture, a poor-taste parody of ‘genuine’ art.” 5. The paintings became a staple in working class home décor anyway. In the 2020 Ray Donovan season seven episode "Passport and a Gun", Jim Sullivan rewards young Ray for his successful debut as a debt collector with a valued and framed copy of A Friend in Need. Paintings of card players have long dealt with themes of lies and deceit, and the most famous iteration of Coolidge’s poker-playing dogs series is no exception. Study A Friend in Need closely, and you’ll realize where its title comes from: Unbeknownst to the other players, the bulldog in the foreground is slipping an ace to his partner. The dirty ace hangs mere inches away from the second bulldog’s paw, echoing the outstretched hands in The Creation of Adam (c. 1511) and, just as in Michelangelo’s famous fresco, heightening the suspense.

Harris, Maria Ochoa. "It's A Dog's World, According to Coolidge", A Friendly Game of Poker (Chicago Review Press, 2003).

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With this in mind, it’s instructive to compare A Friend in Need with Laying Down the Law, an 1840 painting by the English artist Sir Edwin Landseer that’s sometimes cited as a precursor to Coolidge’s series. On the surface, the two works are almost identical: Both feature dogs gathered in a solemn circle, acting like people (card-players in Coolidge, lawyers in Landseer). But Landseer’s painting is meaner and more blatantly satirical than A Friend in Need; rumor has it Landseer modeled some of the dogs off of real-life acquaintances, including the English Lord Chancellor.

Throughout the United States, the paintings have become classic examples of kitsch decoration – repeatedly reproduced, referenced, and modified, both as a bit of a joke and as pop culture’s homage to Coolidge. As the art critic Annette Ferrara puts it, Coolidge is ‘the most famous American artist you’ve never heard of’ whose works have imprinted themselves on ‘even the most un-art historically inclined person’. It was I who mentioned the power point under the table. Of course what Geoff said is 100% correct. (He has forgotten more about tables than most of us will ever know). It is useful, though, for under table heating. My room is quite large (no pun intended, Geoff) so the power under the table is a good idea for the iron.

Who was Cassius Marcellus Coolidge?

In the 1994 "School Daze" episode of Living Single Overton brings a print of A Bold Bluff into art class and comments on the "obviousness" of the bulldog's bluff. These were followed in 1910 by a similar painting, Looks Like Four of a Kind. Other Coolidge paintings featuring anthropomorphized dogs include Kelly Pool, which shows dogs playing kelly pool. a b c McManus, James. "Play It Close to the Muzzle and Paws on the Table", The New York Times (December 3, 2005). In a 2000 episode of the TV series That '70s Show, " Hunting", Dogs Playing Poker is parodied by the characters taking the places of the dogs. 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. [1] [ unreliable source?] 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 examples of kitsch art in home decoration.