Dog Art Today

Awesome Jack-o-Lantern Dog Stencils

Courtesy of my mom from her friend Pat Sublette.  Download the stencils at Better Homes and Gardens (must sign in first).

Happy Halloween!

Video: Jack-o-Lantern Scares Dog...too funny!

Don't forget that Halloween can be very scary for the little ones...

Clip is especially funny since the "fraidy cat" pup is named Beast. Belle is the sweet gal who comes to his rescue. Both are Chihuahua Dachshund mixes. I love the close up shot of them at the end. Adorable!

Dogs of the Great Depression

Herbert Hoover and King Tut by Theodore Horydczak, 1928.

80 years ago today the Stock Market crashed on what came to be known as Black Tuesday, the start of the Great Depression.  As we struggle to find our footing in what is now considered the Great Recession, take a moment to look back and listen to people on the front line:

* PBS just ran an excellent biography on Herbert Hoover.  I never knew historians still widely consider him one of the most -- perhaps THE most -- competent man ever elected President of the United States.  In fact, his career was one of unbridled success and acclaim, until that fateful Tuesday.

* The Roosevelt Institute's New Deal 2.0 is running an insightful series asking thinkers of today what lessons we should have learned from the Great Depression and where we are headed.

* Errol Morris recently completed a fascinating seven-part series on the authenticity Farm Security Administration photographs.  Highly recommend.

*Here is a bleak assessment of dogs in the Great Depression based on two characters in Of Mice and Men euthanizing their pets -- considered the most human thing to do. 

Needless to say, photos of dogs in the Great Depression are not exactly plentiful.

Herbert Hoover's dogs, King Tut, Whoopie &  Englehurst Gillette.  March 28, 1929.  Via VerySerious.org

Sharecropper and sharecropper's dog, North Carolina, 1938 by John Vachon. Via the Library of Congress.

Rural arts exhibition held under the auspices of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in the patio of the U.S. Department of Agriculture building.  Dog show by Mr. Omar Marcoux of League of New Hampshire Arts and Crafts, Concord, who makes more than sixty kinds of dogs,  1937.  Via the Library of Congress.

Gold miner with his dog, Mogollon, New Mexico by Russell Lee, 1940. Via the Library of Congress.

     Children playing near dead dog, South Side of Chicago by Russell Lee, 1941.  Via the Library of Congress.    

Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Miller and dog, Spencer, Iowa by Russell Lee, 1936.  Via the Library of Congress.

Elliott Erwitt's Needle Felted Dog by Domenica More Gordon

When dog artist and DAT reader Nancy Schutt sent me this link to Domenica More Gordon's needle felted dogs now on view at The Dog Show at The Workshop in Edinburgh, I knew (although no mention is made of it) that one of the pups looked very familiar...

"Dog Legs" by Elliott Erwitt, NYC, 1974

How very meta, as Rachel Maddow would say.

Top image is available as a greeting card here. See more of Domenica More Gordon's work here.  For more great dog art, visit Nancy Schutt's Good Dog Art too.

Miguel Angel Madrigal's Dog

Just when I think I have seen it all, someone creates a new way to combine dogs and art...

Miguel Angel Madrigal's work showing at 2009 ArtBo in Bogota, Columbia. Via Jezebel and courtesy of my friend Allison.

Photo credit: GUILLERMO LEGARIA/AFP/Getty Images

Bauhaus Doghouse

Manufactured by the German company Best Friend's Home.  Via If It's Hip, It's Here.

Peggy Guggenheim: Dog, Art Lover

Peggy Guggenheim with her dogs on the roof of her Venetian palazzo by David Seymour, 1950

Sixty-seven years ago this week Peggy Guggenheim opened her gallery Art of this Century and brought together the avant-garde stars of war-torn Europe (Brancusi, Picasso, Kandinsky, Chagall, Mondrian, Duchamp, Picabia, Dali, Braque, Magritte, Dali) with the emerging artists of America (Pollock, Motherwell, de Kooning, Rothko).  With the her gallery's launch she changed the course of Western art forever.  Peggy loved fame, art, sex, penny pinching, and dogs.  Today's post is dedicated to Peggy and her beloved Lhasa Apsos.

Benita and Peggy Guggenheim with Twinkle (not a Lhasa Apso) at the Third Annual Dog Show of the Westchester Kennel Club at Gedney Farms, 1919.

The Grand Canal entrance to her Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, during the exhibition of contemporary sculpture with which opened her new home to the public for the first time, September 1949.  Via Frey Lhasa Apso Kennel.

Anton Gill biographies.  Read good review of one here.

At her Venice palazzo, 1961

The plaque at her Venice palazzo where her fourteen dogs are buried.  Peggy is buried beside them.

Flawed Dogs: The Novel

Artwork from Flawed Dogs: The Novel: The Shocking Raid on Westminster by Berkeley Breathed

I am not crazy about comics, but I adore Berkeley Breathed's Flawed Dogs: The Year End Leftovers at the Piddleton.   Now, inspired by one of Michael Vick's former dogs who became a lover not a fighter after being given a second chance, Breathed has turned his picture book into novel for young adults called Flawed Dogs: The Novel: The Shocking Raid on Westminster.   I haven't actually read it yet, but knowing his wide appeal (my 4-year-old niece Layla is as big a fan as I am), I feel confident recommending it for all ages.  Read more at OhMyDog.com.

P.S. Yes, the main character is a Dachshund with a soup ladle for a hind leg.

Order your copy here.