# Dogs Playing Poker
**Dogs Playing Poker** is the informal collective name for a group of oil paintings by the American artist Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (1844–1934) showing anthropomorphized dogs smoking cigars, drinking, and playing cards around a table. The name covers an 1894 painting, a 1903 series of sixteen oil paintings commissioned by the advertising firm Brown & Bigelow to promote cigars, and a 1910 painting, eighteen works in all[1](https://artincontext.org/DOGS-PLAYING-POKER-CASSIUS-MARCELLUS-COOLIDGE/) • [2](https://poker.betmgm.com/en/blog/lifestyle/story-of-dogs-playing-poker-painting/). The best-known image, *A Friend in Need* (1903), is generally believed to be in a private collection[3](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13175108/) • [18](https://www.dogsinhistory.org/stories-dogs-in-history/dogs-playing-poker-a-friend-in-need-coolidge).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Artist | Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, 1844–1934, born in upstate New York to Quaker abolitionist farmers[4](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/content/32/5/pdfs/v32-n5.pdf) |
| Scope of the name | An 1894 painting, sixteen Brown & Bigelow oils (1903–1910), and a 1910 painting; eighteen works total[1](https://artincontext.org/DOGS-PLAYING-POKER-CASSIUS-MARCELLUS-COOLIDGE/) • [2](https://poker.betmgm.com/en/blog/lifestyle/story-of-dogs-playing-poker-painting/) |
| First painting | *Poker Game* (1894), oil on canvas, 61 cm × 86 cm, showing four bespectacled Saint Bernards at cards[5](https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/hickman/An_Art_Miscellany_2018_Richard_Hickman.pdf) • [2](https://poker.betmgm.com/en/blog/lifestyle/story-of-dogs-playing-poker-painting/) |
| Most reproduced work | *A Friend in Need* (1903), 129.5 cm × 160.6 cm, generally believed to be in a private collection[3](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13175108/) • [18](https://www.dogsinhistory.org/stories-dogs-in-history/dogs-playing-poker-a-friend-in-need-coolidge) |
| Original purpose | Commissioned advertising art reproduced on calendars and prints promoting cigars[3](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13175108/) |
| Record auction price | *Poker Game* sold for $658,000 at Sotheby's New York on 18 November 2015[5](https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/hickman/An_Art_Miscellany_2018_Richard_Hickman.pdf) |
| Critical standing | Categorized as kitsch, a term applied to art by critic Clement Greenberg in 1939[3](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13175108/) |
## The paintings and their titles
The series began with *Poker Game* (1894), an oil on canvas measuring 61 cm × 86 cm that shows four bespectacled Saint Bernards around a poker table with whiskey, cigars, and cards[5](https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/hickman/An_Art_Miscellany_2018_Richard_Hickman.pdf) • [2](https://poker.betmgm.com/en/blog/lifestyle/story-of-dogs-playing-poker-painting/). In 1903 Coolidge signed a contract with Brown & Bigelow, a Minnesota promotional firm, and delivered sixteen oils over the following years[6](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-painting-dogs-playing-poker-endured-100-years). Nine of the sixteen are set at a card table; the other seven place the dogs in a courtroom, on the road, at a fraternal lodge, and at a ballpark[7](https://www.dogplayingpoker.com/the-series/).
The card-table paintings include *A Friend in Need*, *His Station and Four Aces*, *Pinched with Four Aces*, *Poker Sympathy*, *Post Mortem*, *Sitting Up with a Sick Friend*, *A Waterloo*, *A Bold Bluff*, and *Looks Like Four of a Kind* (1910)[7](https://www.dogplayingpoker.com/the-series/). The non-poker subjects range from *Riding the Goat*, a depiction of a fraternal initiation, to *One to Tie, Two to Win* (baseball) and *Ten Miles to a Garage*[1](https://artincontext.org/DOGS-PLAYING-POKER-CASSIUS-MARCELLUS-COOLIDGE/). Brown & Bigelow's marketers renamed at least one work: *A Bold Bluff* was originally titled *Judge St. Bernard Stands Pat on Nothing*[8](https://www.dogsplayingpoker.org/gallery/coolidge/a_bold_bluff.html).
**A Friend in Need.** The painting most people mean by the phrase shows seven dogs around a green table under a hanging red lamp; a bulldog in the foreground slips an ace under the felt to a partner who already holds three aces, giving that dog a winning hand of four[3](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13175108/) • [9](https://popularculturereview.org/uploads/1/3/6/5/136597491/18.1.pdf). The Smithsonian also holds a related Coolidge canvas cataloged as *Untitled: Dogs Playing Cards*, showing five dogs at a round poker table while a poodle carries in a tray of drinks[10](https://www.si.edu/object/siris_ari_219972).
## Commercial origin
The paintings were advertising material, not gallery art. Brown & Bigelow specialized in advertising calendars, and Coolidge's dog images were reproduced on calendars and promotional prints for cigars, circulating into millions of American homes[3](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13175108/) • [6](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-painting-dogs-playing-poker-endured-100-years). Coolidge had worked in commercial art for decades before the series: many art historians credit him with inventing "comic foregrounds," the plywood photo stand-ins with a cut-out hole for a head[6](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-painting-dogs-playing-poker-endured-100-years). His earliest dog-and-poker images, dating to the 1870s, decorated cigar boxes for tobacco companies[6](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-painting-dogs-playing-poker-endured-100-years). Coolidge himself was paid up to $10,000 for his work in his own day[11](https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/19673-painting-of-dogs-playing-poker-sells-for-658k).
## Reception as kitsch
Art critics have generally placed the series outside fine art. The label most often applied is kitsch, a term [Clement Greenberg](https://www.edgepedia.org/clement-greenberg), the influential New York critic, introduced into art criticism in 1939 in his essay "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," published in *Partisan Review*, where he defined kitsch as commercial art concerned with magazine covers, illustrations, and ads[3](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13175108/). The paintings' status as a pop-culture shorthand for lowbrow art is such that when William Hennessey, director of the Chrysler Museum of Art, issued an [April Fools' Day](https://www.edgepedia.org/april-fools-day) press release in 2002 claiming he was trying to acquire the series, the joke was precisely that the idea of hanging them in a museum seemed absurd[6](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-painting-dogs-playing-poker-endured-100-years).
Museum standing has nonetheless shifted. *A Friend in Need* is generally believed to be in a private collection, and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles displays *Poker Game* a few steps from a [Frida Kahlo](https://www.edgepedia.org/frida-kahlo) self-portrait, presenting the pairing as a deliberate merger of high and low art[3](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13175108/) • [12](https://apnews.com/article/359e58bb09f0e787cef35ed3f70f93df) • [18](https://www.dogsinhistory.org/stories-dogs-in-history/dogs-playing-poker-a-friend-in-need-coolidge). Commentators have also compared the compositions to serious precedents: critics have likened *Poker Game* to card-game scenes by [Michelangelo](https://www.edgepedia.org/michelangelo) and [Paul Cézanne](https://www.edgepedia.org/paul-cezanne), and *A Friend in Need* to Sir Edwin Landseer's *Laying Down the Law* (1840)[13](https://www.poker.org/latest-news/dogs-playing-poker-whats-the-deal-aAeLE9c54dPr/) • [6](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-painting-dogs-playing-poker-endured-100-years).
## The auction market
Original Coolidge oils command prices far above their appraisals. On February 15, 2005, Doyle New York sold *A Bold Bluff* and *Waterloo* for $590,400 combined, against a pre-sale appraisal of $30,000 to $50,000 and a previous Coolidge record of $74,000[14](https://library.nationalmuseum.gov.ph/digital-collection/digi/CV04/CV040000456.pdf). In November 2015, Sotheby's New York sold *Poker Game* for $658,000 against an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000[5](https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/hickman/An_Art_Miscellany_2018_Richard_Hickman.pdf) • [11](https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/19673-painting-of-dogs-playing-poker-sells-for-658k). The paintings first became a mainstream hit in the 1970s, according to a report cited by *Card Player*[11](https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/19673-painting-of-dogs-playing-poker-sells-for-658k).
## Popular culture
The image has been reproduced on posters, figurines, clocks, coasters, playing cards, and calendars, and referenced in television, film, and music[15](https://www.pokernews.com/news/2016/10/poker-pop-culture-024-cassius-m-coolidge-dogs-playing-poker-26029.htm). [Snoop Dogg](https://www.edgepedia.org/snoop-dogg) featured the painting in his 1993 music video "What's My Name?"[13](https://www.poker.org/latest-news/dogs-playing-poker-whats-the-deal-aAeLE9c54dPr/). The scene has also become a template for parody, from a [Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.edgepedia.org/dungeons-and-dragons) version of *A Friend in Need* to group portraits of United States presidents at a poker table[16](https://monochrom.at/presse/monochrom_pressespiegel_2014.pdf) • [17](https://time.com/4226404/andy-thomas-presidents-poker-paintings-prints-posters/).
## References
1. [Dogs Playing Poker Cassius Marcellus Coolidge – An Analysis, Artincontext](https://artincontext.org/DOGS-PLAYING-POKER-CASSIUS-MARCELLUS-COOLIDGE/)
2. [The Story Behind the "Dogs Playing Poker" Painting, BetMGM](https://poker.betmgm.com/en/blog/lifestyle/story-of-dogs-playing-poker-painting/)
3. [Gone to the Dogs—The Canon of Kitsch, Emerging Infectious Diseases (CDC)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13175108/)
4. [Cover, Emerging Infectious Diseases Vol. 32 No. 5 (CDC)](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/content/32/5/pdfs/v32-n5.pdf)
5. [An Art Miscellany, Richard Hickman, University of Cambridge](https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/hickman/An_Art_Miscellany_2018_Richard_Hickman.pdf)
6. [Why This Painting of Dogs Playing Poker Has Endured for over 100 Years, Artsy](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-painting-dogs-playing-poker-endured-100-years)
7. [The Series — All 16 Coolidge Paintings (1903–1910)](https://www.dogplayingpoker.com/the-series/)
8. ["A Bold Bluff" by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, DogsPlayingPoker.org](https://www.dogsplayingpoker.org/gallery/coolidge/a_bold_bluff.html)
9. [Poker is "Going to the Dogs," Popular Culture Review](https://popularculturereview.org/uploads/1/3/6/5/136597491/18.1.pdf)
10. [Untitled: Dogs Playing Cards, Smithsonian American Art Museum](https://www.si.edu/object/siris_ari_219972)
11. [Painting Of Dogs Playing Poker Sells For $658K, Card Player](https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/19673-painting-of-dogs-playing-poker-sells-for-658k)
12. [5 must-see things at George Lucas's new Museum of Narrative Art, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/359e58bb09f0e787cef35ed3f70f93df)
13. [Dogs playing poker: what's the deal?, Poker.org](https://www.poker.org/latest-news/dogs-playing-poker-whats-the-deal-aAeLE9c54dPr/)
14. [Cigars appear to give off smoke... (Coolidge auction history), National Museum of the Philippines digital collection](https://library.nationalmuseum.gov.ph/digital-collection/digi/CV04/CV040000456.pdf)
15. [The Story Behind Dogs Playing Poker by Cassius Coolidge, PokerNews](https://www.pokernews.com/news/2016/10/poker-pop-culture-024-cassius-m-coolidge-dogs-playing-poker-26029.htm)
16. ['Dogs Playing D&D', a parody of A Friend in Need, monochrom press clippings](https://monochrom.at/presse/monochrom_pressespiegel_2014.pdf)
17. [Why This Cowboy Painter Is Watching the 2016 Race Closely, TIME](https://time.com/4226404/andy-thomas-presidents-poker-paintings-prints-posters/)
18. [Dogs Playing Poker: A Friend in Need Explained, Dogs in History](https://www.dogsinhistory.org/stories-dogs-in-history/dogs-playing-poker-a-friend-in-need-coolidge)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Visual arts and design › Individual paintings and painting oeuvres › 19th-century paintings*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license