The Art Bombing World of the Cat

It’s been a bit quiet on the R and R front this Fall but I’ve not been entirely idle. I have a piece coming out in Intrepid Ed News next week so that’s something to look forward to along with Thanksgiving.

It takes a rather jaundiced eye on the topic of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and how our obsession with identity has led us astray. I am sure you will all be super excited to read my suggestions for what schools can do to fix the problem.

 

Meanwhile here is a little distraction: Cats and how they persist in getting themselves into works of art even if just as bit players to the main attraction.

 

Here’s a cat boiling its brain.
Henry Silk, The Kitchen, 1934
Here are two working cats in supervision mode:

 

Sorting Garlic, John Bulloch Souter-(1890–1971)
Mary Fedden, Black Cat Cafe

And a cat keeping an eye on the destructive folly of humans. 

An Aerial Battle, Blackheath, 1940 – Francis-Dodd 1940

In this memory painting of growing up in the American South, Winfred Rembert shows us the yard outside his wife’s family’s home. It’s all happening and the cat is managing it all from atop a stump.

Winfred Rembert, The Gammages (Patsy’s House) (2005)

This is another London scene and you have to really want to find that cat

Islington Back Gardens Early Spring-Melissa-Scott-Miller, 2019.

Collioure might be famous as the birthplace of Fauvism and known as the “city of painters” but what is a landscape without a cat? 

Landscape with a Cat.-1926 Rudolph Ihlee.
And one last rather malevolent-seeming cat lurking under the table in Cecily Brown’s. 2020 Lobsters, oysters, cherries, and pearls seen at the Met exhibit Death and the Maid

 

JosieHolford

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  • I absolutely LOVED this post!
    My favorite was the Rembert!
    Since my new cat connections are apparently staying for the long haul, I am fascinated by them.

      • All the detail brings it alive.The many small incidences that conjoin to create a place. A bit of this and a bit of that…Memories of a slope to the canal on my many walks. How much i want to get well and visit again..and visit wave hill. Meanwhile wheres that postcard…half apostcard

        • Her back gardens are so...well. London. Dirty yellow clay brink and all.
          (Do I still owe you half a postcard? Oh dear! That's very remiss of me. )

    • You found Waldo!
      Melissa-Scott-Miller has several similar Islington back garden paintings all of which are great. In some of them, she shows an artist at an easel along with her dog. I love all of them. There are more examples of her urban landscapes here: https://www.scottmillerart.com/

  • I found the Islington cat right away. It was the second cat in the Sorting Garlic picture I had trouble with, then realised the caption referred to 2 different paintings. Duh. Cats do indeed like to insert themselves and to run the show. I find it's best to let them believe they do. Which they don't. Usually. Sometimes.

  • I love your wise observation:"a cat keeping an eye on the destructive folly of humans." Unfortunately, even a cat with nine eyes would be as unmoved (by what he sees) as are the humans behind the folly. :'(

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