Art Dog Trivia: A special Pride edition
In honor of pride month, which I’ll be celebrating in New York this weekend, today I’m putting your knowledge to the test.
Can you guess the queer artist from looking at photos of their pets?
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Which queer artist and pets did I miss that I should’ve included in this edition? Reply to this email and let me know, or share in the comments, please!
Liberace was a dog “savior,” reportedly owning 14 to 24 rescue dogs at various times. The dogs wore bling collars and elaborate coats, keeping pace his luxury lifestyle. When Liberace died of AIDS, he left a $50,000 trust to care for his dogs.
A club owner gave Josephine Baker a pet cheetah named Chiquita to use as part of her show, and she kept the cat. Chiquita traveled the world with Baker, always riding in her car and sleeping in her bed. Baker also had a pet goat named Toutoute who lived in her dressing room at her nightclub, and a pet pig named Albert, whom she liked to “gussy up with fancy perfumes.”
In 1993, David Hockney created a series of more than 40 paintings of his dachshunds, Stanley and Boodgie.
Freddie Mercury reportedly had 10 cats—Dorothy, Tiffany, Tom, Jerry, Delilah, Goliath, Lily, Miko, Oscar and Romeo. They all lived with him in Kensington. In one of his last interviews, Freddie Mercury told journalist David Wigg that he had willed all his assets to his ex-fiancé, Mary Austin, and his cats. In the liner notes of his 1985 debut solo album Mr. Bad Guy, he wrote:
"This album is dedicated to my cat Jerry — also Tom, Oscar, and Tiffany, and all the cat lovers across the universe — screw everybody else!"
Kehinde Wiley currently has somewhere between 3-5 dogs. His Afghan Hounds have their own Instagram account (@sudanandtogo) and have appeared in his paintings.
Catherine Opie’s photo of her dog, Sunny, was included in a visual diary she published with the following caption:
“Our dog, Sunny, hates having her picture taken. Absolutely hates it. She lives with a photographer, and every time I point a camera at her, she slowly turns her head away. She knows the camera is there — that’s just her defiance in being photographed. She’s unique in that way. Both Julie and Oliver tolerate me photographing them. But I also haven’t abused them by putting them in lots of work.”
A neighbor reportedly gave Georgia O’Keeffe two blue Chow Chow puppies that she named Bo and Chia for Christmas in 1953. She ended up having six during her lifetime, including Bobo, Jinga, and Inca. When her eyesight began to fail in the 1970s, O’Keeffe had white carpet laid in her Abiquiu studio so that she could spot the dogs better. There are some incredible photos of her with her dogs that are worth browsing.
Tove Jansson had a cat named Psipsina, which means ‘cat’ in Greek. Psipsina lived to be 16 years old. Tove sometimes drew her cat in letters to friends.
Lil Nas X is apparently “downright wholesome when it comes to animals in need.” The “Old Town Road” singer adopted a pair of cotton-pawed kittens named Desani and Zephard (see more photos), tweeting “I’m not their stepfather, I’m the father who stepped up.” Four years ago, he also adopted a pair of Bernese Mountain pups named Seven and Nine.
Vita Sackville-West had many dogs, including a Cocker Spaniel named Pippin (famously the mother of Virginia Woolf's Spaniel, Pinka—see both Spaniels below), an Alsatian Rollo, whose photograph hangs in Sissinghurst Castle, and an elkhound Canute, who was known to “hop on the bus into town whenever he got bored.” Vita even wrote a book about dogs.
There are a number of stunning portraits of Vita with her dogs in the National Portrait Gallery.
So much fun!
So funnn. Happy pride weekenddd