You've seen it before, and you've probably always wondered: "Why are dogs playing poker?"The Dogs Playing Poker series is a collection of 9 oil paintings by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. The advertising firm Brown & Bigelow commissioned the artist to create 16 paintings of anthropomorphized dogs, and 9 of them were in poker game scenes, holding playing cards and sitting at poker tables littered with poker chips. In 2005, originals of "A Bold Bluff" and "Waterloo" were put on auction with the expectation of selling for somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000. To everyone's surprise but the buyer's, the paintings sold for half a million dollars.
The popularity of the paintings and its style (which has been repeatedly imitated) are probably due to many homages made in pop culture. The paintings have been featured in television shows like The Simpsons, Roseanne, That '70s Show, Family Guy, Cheers, and in plays, commercials, games, and comic strips.
Pictured above is "His Station and Four Aces," 1903.
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