C.M. Coolidge

Artist Biography

C.M. Coolidge was born in 1844 in upstate New York to abolitionist Quaker farmers. While he had no formal training as an artist his natural aptitude for drawing lead him to create cartoons for his local newspaper when in his twenties. In addition to his famous art, prints and posters, he is credited with creating Comic Foregrounds, life-size cutouts into which one's head was placed so as to be photographed as an amusing character.

In 1903, C.M. Coolidge contracted with the advertising firm of Brown & Bigelow of St. Paul, Minnesota, to create sixteen oil paintings of dogs in various human poses. Nine of them depict dogs playing poker. On February 15, 2005, two of these paintings, A Bold Bluff and Waterloo, went on the auction block expecting to fetch between $30,000 and $50,000 but surprisingly sold for $590,400. The auction set an auction record for Coolidge, whose previous top sale was $74,000. Coolidge's paintings are often imitated in art, prints and posters.

While C.M. Coolidge's use of lighting and composition may have been traditional in his art, prints and posters, his subject matter and social commentary were far ahead of his time. Coolidge painted his famous dogs playing poker half a century before the surrealist movement.

C.M. Coolidge Art, Prints and Posters Collection