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Value is in the eye of the highest bidder

Let's be honest: Would you invest $590,400 in poker playing dogs? Whether is was the dogs, or the game they played, some collector found them worth the price.

By SUSAN ASCHOFF
Published March 4, 2005

For all the men whose women told them to hang a particular piece of art in the garage, this one's for you: A pair of paintings of dogs playing poker fetched almost $600,000 at auction, 12 times their estimated sales price and smashing the previous record for a poker dogs painting.

The Feb. 15 bid, at Doyle New York's "Dogs in Art" auction, brought unprecedented coverage for an annual event begun in 1999 and scheduled to coincide with the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. This year's auction offered more than 185 paintings, prints, bronzes, ceramics and memorabilia such as dog show medals and trophies.

But the two paintings of dogs as card sharks stole the spotlight. They sold for $590,400 to an unidentified buyer. The previous high price paid for one of the series was $74,000 at Sotheby's.

There are nine paintings total, executed by artist Cassius Marcellus Coolidge in 1903 as part of a 16-painting series of dogs acting like humans. In one, dogs are both fans and players at a ballpark. Coolidge is also credited with creating those life-sized cutouts through which people poke their heads for goofy photographs.

The "Dogs in Art" auction has itself become a bit of a sensation, with a Sunday champagne brunch for dogs and their humans to raise money for DOGNY, the American Kennel Club charity.

This time preauction marketing brilliantly tapped the current national craze for poker, evidenced by the popularity of Bravo's Celebrity Poker and the World Poker Tour on television and by the packed tables in Las Vegas. Doyle New York sent auction information to poker Web sites, casinos and celebrity poker players via their agents.

Though dogs playing poker peaked this year, Alan Fausel, director of paintings at Doyle New York, says he has been hounded by fans of the works for years. We caught up with him by phone in South Florida, where he was doing appraisals.

I'm dying to know who bought the dogs playing poker paintings. A poker player? An art lover? Is it an eclectic collector, perhaps someone who also owns a Monet? Or someone who wears lots of gold jewelry? Can't you give up something?

I can tell you it is a New York buyer. I don't know his collecting habits. He's not a regular customer. I didn't know the two bidders who took it (the price) above a couple hundred thousand. We also had a foreign bidder.

You do realize that every single man's apartment has a filthy bathroom and a poster of dogs playing poker.

It's something I've gotten every year (since the "Dogs in Art" auction began six years ago). Every time I said, "I do the Dogs in Art sale," they said, "Do you have dogs playing poker?" We were very proud to have them this year. We knew they were going to do very well. We just didn't know they would do this well.

It's really more a testament to the early marketing power of Brown & Bigelow (of St. Paul, Minn.), who were advertisers and commissioned them in 1903. A testament to their ubiquitousness is that I'm swamped now with calls to say they have the same painting and they're ready to sell it and retire. I've gotten hundreds of calls. (These are, of course, prints and posters, not valuable originals.)

So what is their artistic merit?

When I first encountered them, I thought I'd put them in an American paintings sale. But dog owners like their dogs doing dog things. I think poker is key. I saw these paintings a couple of years ago. We hemmed and hawed. We didn't think we were near these numbers at that time. Then poker took off.

They are important as work from an American illustrator on American culture, such as illustrations from (Norman) Rockwell, (James Montgomery) Flagg and (Andrew) Wyeth. They (poker dogs) would have been done for calendars for insurance companies, or the local muffler shop.

You've had an annual dog auction since 1999. How did that come about?

It coincides with Westminster Kennel Club dog show, because it's the best time for it. There are something like 30,000 participants in town. We've done a doggie brunch. Most of the people brought dogs. My wife and her dog (a springer spaniel) came.

Not to discount William Wegman's Weimaraners, but is there truly great dog art?

There are a couple of categories. One is the purebred pet portrait, a portrait of a known dog in his optimal pose. Often they're labeled and named. Another part of it is the sporting group, (shown in) a natural setting. There aren't that many dog paintings above $20,000 or $30,000, even by good artists.

I see a painting by Percival Leonard Rosseau of two setters sold for $120,000, a record for that artist.

Here's a great piece of dog art, probably overshadowed by the dogs playing poker publicity. It's the perfect storm of dog paintings: Setters are top of the breeds for pecking order, Rosseau is probably the best American painter of dogs, it has known ties to the famous (Rockefellers) and is in top condition.

Does the interest in dogs strike you as, um, a little over the top? I mean, people are paying thousands of dollars for portraits of their pets and dressing them in diamonds.

We are getting into the pet cemetery realm. People do like their dogs; they like their breeds. I did an estate appraisal of a painting, one of the best of my breed of dog. It's a springer. I'm sure if it came up for sale, I'd fight for it. For a guy with a high stakes game on Saturday nights, I'm sure he'd like dogs playing poker to hang in the room.

Will there ever be a "Cats in Art" show?

We originally had dogs and cats. We found there were less and less really good cat paintings. Cats in general don't do as much. Dogs have a larger variety of breeds. The client is much different. That type of purchaser (cat) is not as keen on the tradition. I think (this year) we had one painting that showed a couple puppies with a cat. I don't think that did all that well. Dog people don't like cats. Cat people don't like dogs. Even with breeds, we can't mix. We had a dachshund and Great Dane (in one painting). Some don't like that.

As hard as I try to believe, dogs playing poker is not art. It's kitsch. It's Elvis painted on velvet.

(We were told before the sale) that they're worth $500,000 to $1-million. We didn't believe it. We were wrong. The artistic element is not always the most important thing. There's condition, there's rarity, there's what is popular at a certain time. You go through the Smithsonian, and there's a lot of odd things. They have Archie Bunker's chair.

- Susan Aschoff can be reached at 727 892-2293 or aschoff@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 3, 2005, 09:35:04]