cat basket

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That's the title: "Cat Basket." (Also known as "Study of Cats III," but everyone seems to prefer the other.)  This delicious Franz Marc from 1909 shows a free gusto in the strokes used for the cats' fur.  Don't those cats look plush and twitchy, as though they'll bounce up and out at any second?  Perhaps he was painting quickly in case they did. 

two dashing art types

www.nationalmuseum.se
Purchase 2012 by Hedda and N.D. Qvists Fund

Here's a couple of bad-ass, black-clad art types from early 20th century Sweden: Selfportrait with Dog, an undated oil sketch on cardboard by Bernhard Osterman (1870-1938). Osterman's work included graphic art, cartooning and arts management, but he's best appreciated for his portraits.  He traveled widely in Europe, and spent years practicing in Paris.  Most of his portriats are of the famous and important, and they look as formal as you'd imagine.  This self-portrait is more of an experiment, I think, in which Osterman tried his hand at a freer technique and feel that was more in line with Impressionism.  Was that his own dog, I wonder, or did he borrow him as the perfect counterpoint to his own black-clad figure?

teddy roosevelt wrangles the pets

Theodore Roosevelt's letters to his children are a pleasure to read (except for descriptions of big-game hunting, at which you chalk it up to the times, wince, and move on).  They are affectionate, funny, thoughtful, and wide-ranging; there is a passage on Dickens as a writer vs. Dickens as a man which is not at all complimentary toward the latter.  The letters are also full of animal news, as the Roosevelt family was fond of pets.  Here's a couple of passages from January 1908 about two of the White House zoo, including a kitchen cat that invited itself to an official reception.
***
White House, Jan. 2, 1908.
. . . Mother continues much attached to Scamp, who is certainly a cunning little dog. He is very affectionate, but so exceedingly busy when we are out on the grounds, that we only catch glimpses of him zigzagging at full speed from one end of the place to the other. The kitchen cat and he have strained relations but have not yet come to open hostility. 

White House, Jan. 27, 1908.
DEAR ARCHIE:
Scamp is really a cunning little dog, but he takes such an extremely keen interest in hunting, and is so active, that when he is out on the grounds with us we merely catch glimpses of him as he flashes by. The other night after the Judicial Reception when we went up-stairs to supper the kitchen cat suddenly appeared parading down the hall with great friendliness, and was forthwith exiled to her proper home again.

-- from Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919. Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children. New York: C. Scribner's sons, 1919. pp. 217-8.

a poem: "dogs begin by being puppies"

THE DOG.
Dogs begin by being puppies,
All of them, both great and small;
But a pup, when he grows up, is
Often not a dog at all.

Ask the crafty sausage seller,
Keeping meanwhile near the door,
Where he gets his meat, and—well-er,
Perhaps we’d better say no more.

Then again, the oily Moses,
Fat cigar and diamond pin,
Oft I wonder if he knows his
Coat is lined with canine skin.

Thus the little dog, no matter
What his walk in life may be—
Sausage-meat, pet, hound, or ratter,
Spends his time most usefully.

-- Lang, Arthur, 1892-1916. Verses. Glasgow: J. Maclehose, 1917. p. 35.  Arthur Lang (1892-1916) was a Scottish soldier killed in action in WWI.  His poetry, shared privately among friends, was collected and published in remembrance after his death.  Most of it is wryly humorous, as you can see from the selection above.

puppy peace

 [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

We've seen the luminous work of Takeuchi Seiho a couple of times before at the Museum; you may recall a mouse going formal, a cat keeping clean.  Here is a piece dating around 1935 titled "Tranquility" and absolutely delivering what it promises.