Poker is “Going to the Dogs”
103
Deadvvood, South Dakota, while he was holding aces and eights in a poker
game.
The common democracy of the game is also shown in Thomas Hart
Benton’s 1948 Poker Night, portraying players seeking an escape from the
desperate lives they are living. Philip Evergood’s 1936 The Siding, portrays
gandy dancers engrossed in poker on a rail side car. Several paintings look
westward. Benton’s 1932 Arts of the West, features a game of draw poker,
Abraham Rattner shows female players in his expressionist Game of Cards.
Colombian Fernando Botero’s The Card Players illustrates three of his
prototypical rotund people sitting about a small table with cards in their hands
and cards on the table. The hefty sized woman is contemplating a fast move as
she is seated upon two cards, aces, we may suspect.
“Bluffing”—the passive skill of the player with a “poker face”—is
shown by Robin Morris in the 1989 picture of that name. The emotion of play is
illustrated in the four faces shown in Poker Game, a 1985 painting by Israel
Rubenstein. One has busted, another smugly sits with a royal flush hand, another
is squeezing his last chip, and the fourth is dreaming of the card he needs in the
draw.
Of all the paintings of poker games none are as popular as Cassius
Marcellus Coolidge’s nine pieces showing dogs playing poker. Well over a
million prints of the paintings (plus six others with dogs playing very human
roles) hang al l around the world in pool halls, saloons, and gambling halls, as
well as private homes. The paintings put the dogs in various postures showing
impending victory, busting, and serious contemplation.
The Coolidge works drew inspiration from the style of the Dutch
Masters who preceded him by a century; on the other hand, the images offer a
surrealism that was not popular for another half century. His work is considered
as influential in inspiring the work of Andy Warhol.
Coolidge's original “dogs” have sold for as much as $590,000 each, but
you need not pay that much to enjoy the fruit of his labors, (http://money.cnn
.com/2005/02/16/news/newsmakers/poker_dogs/index.htm?cnn=yes). You can
buy a tie with the image of one of his paintings for only $19.95 at the Gambler’s
General Store in Las Vegas. They also sell refrigerator magnets for $7.95 and
posters for the same price. The Gambler’s Book Store offers “Dogs Playing
Poker” calendars for $12.95. But check out your Web and eBay and you can
find the following items for sale—each embellished with those poker-playing
dogs: