Author: Pam's Pictorama

A New Year

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This year the New Year brought a lousy head cold which I am only just recovering from. It was fairly well timed for a day or so of laying around and reading which arguably is what I should have been doing under any circumstances. The novels are largely not worth mentioning – a rom com about a woman who finds she is dating an android (I thought it had more possibilities than it delivered) and Buckeye which seems to be everyone’s novel of the moment – deservedly. It is very good and fair to say it is sort of an instant classic. (Sadly I am still looking for my next Rosa Mulholland fix. Prior posts about those books can be found here and here. I have read a few since then and owe you all an update.)

Cookie up in Kim’s studio.

Cold notwithstanding this has been a nice holiday visit to NJ. Cookie has made progress and now comes down the stairs to look at first floor activity. She sits in a chair in Kim’s studio like a little queen, much better adjusted to her NJ surroundings than she used to be.

Peaches, we have an ongoing dialogue these days about trying to be a better kitty.

Peaches, our very asocial girl – aka the meanest cat in the world – is make surprising progress in her relation to humans and other cats. I have tried having long conversations with her about this and she listens carefully. She now is willing to sit on a towel near my chair even if I cannot actually pet her. (She’s also showed us how, when atop another chair, she chases her tail in a frenzy – and she has tried, less successfully, to steal food from her very large sibling, Beau. I have written Peaches story here if you want to read it.)

Kim’s page – hot off the press, or perhaps still on it!

Shown above, Kim is working on a spectacular pencil for his next story. It speaks for itself! (Check out that polar bear! And the snow!) He is making good use of his time here.

Comic book store.

We’ve paid a visit to the comic book store and, obviously given yesterday’s post, to the Red Bank Antique Annex. I also purchased this very nice camel (in photo at the top and which is part of a Christmas set – I will likely keep him in my cabinet year round however) and a nice Santa shown here too. Red Bank was pleasantly decked out in small town holiday mode with lights – although you also get to see Macy’s just before the holiday, snapped on my way to the train on one of the days I commuted into the city.

Macy’s during my commute in right before Christmas.

Kim and I had a cozy lunch that day at a favorite place I have written about before, Dublin House. This is an old Victorian house which has been converted to a restaurant and bar. Originally built in neighboring Middletown, it was moved across the river to Red Bank back in 1840. It was first rehabilitated back in 1971 as a ice cream parlour and restaurant. The current owners purchased it in 2004 and turned it into a rather authentic Irish enclave. (Kim and I can vouch for the “Irish nachos” which are cheesy greatness on homemade chips – yum!) There is a fireplace in the small dining room which makes it perfect for a frosty day. In the summer, door-sized windows open to outside dining on a porch and outside area. Some original details remain such as the windows shown here.

Interior of Dublin House earlier last week.

As I write there is a huge cat dust up in Kim’s studio – Blackie skulking up the stairs to give his sister Cookie a hard time. Kim is being referee but maybe some extra food might make Blackie less adventurous.

View from the car driving to the train one morning in darkness with Red Bank’s twinkle lights.

We had enough snow during this visit that I shoveled the walk and driveway twice, but was sick and skipped the most recent dusting. Luckily snow melt from a prior shoveling was still doing its job. It is a snowy winter compared to last year when we didn’t have any to memory.

Christmas display at the Antique Annex.

Kim and I had a little project of hanging some things up. You might remember these from prior posts – they have made their way here for permanent relocation. I also have the great Louis Wain sheet that I purchased and framed a few months ago. Heavy as it is, I am waiting for help to put that up. However, in addition to yesterday’s pig painting, we hung an interesting black cat piece from England and several photos that I purchased here for the house. The house is slowly acquiring a more distinctive Pictorama appearance.

So, well enough to make a grocery run today, I am going to leave off and go get dressed. We leave in the middle of the week so it will be an NYC post the next time you hear from me!

A Pig Painting for Pam

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today I am kicking off the New Year with a special pig painting post. Kim and I bought this painting (he bought it for me) the day after Christmas while prowling here at the Red Bank Antique Annex.

I wonder if it had just been put on display recently or if I had just never really looked up and at it before. (I have written about trips to this enclave of shops in a post most recently here.) It was on a wall with a jumble of other paintings, but it caught my eye this time and we snatched it up.

These three paintings above pulled off of Facebook, people looking for information and verification that these are his. I vote a resounding yes to the first; scratch my head a bit on the second (although there is something of him in it); and vote a likely yes to the third. Sorry I can’t do better on the photos!

It is signed by the artist, Louis H. Clawson, and datde 1961. A quick internet search brought him up the other day, but now the results are a bit more brief which makes me wonder if the other was conflating him with several other artists with similar names. Not surprisingly he was a regional painter and of some note and he is lightly collected today. However, as I add tidbits to the AI search it becomes more clear that we are talking about this artist.

Signature on my painting.
This may be a cyanotype of him, comes up on the page about him but no information.

I seem to have identified with some certainty that he died on July 1, 1963. Something comes up with a July 15, 1881 date for a date of birth (to a Jesse Clawson) which works with the date of death but again I can’t quite confirm. He also appears to have married Leora Gertrude Hammond on May 25, 1910. they had a son and a daughter.

He is associated with living in and painting Fayett, Columbia County which appears to be in Indiana, although SW Pennsylvania came up first. Although an artist identification Facebook page says he was of some national note, I am unable to find much more than this about him. Clearly he was a landscape painter and he may or may not have also painted portraits – I only have the clown above to go by which is not a ringing endorsement. I believe that he was trained at the National Academy of Design (probably the National Academy of Art) in New York City. His forte seems to have been covered bridges, although regional landscape in general. His period of (relative) popularity seems to be the 1930’s.

Covered bridge painting as below. Substantially earlier than mine which was done shortly before his death.

One Facebook entry from Kathy Lynne Brandenburg Harmon shows a covered bridge painting above. (I gather he was sort of known for those) and writes the following:

I have this painting done by L H Clawson.  Probably done around 1930.  It is a covered bridge on State road 44.  The top of the hill is my grandfather Will Goss’ farm , lower left is the home of the Jesop’s (the taffy family). I can’t find out too much about his works but I spoke with the owner of the antique store by the Daniel Girls Farm restaurant  and told me that he was a relatively known artist of landscapes.  I would love to know more.

Next to mine I like these best and would think these are definitely by him. I’d have grabbed these too.

None of his other paintings seem to have an interesting homemade frame like mine which definitely adds to its appeal. (Actually, hard to see but the second painting of the two above might have one but I can’t quite make it out.) It does leave me wondering a bit if he made it or someone else but it seems to be so much a part of it that I defer to thinking it was him. The painting is on masonite board, not especially heavy, even with this frame. For me this painting is mostly about these hogs, although for Kim it is, in part, the painting of the foliage which seems to be something he did employ and excel at. The composition, with the winding path and the light hitting the trees, is strong too.

This too on FB and I can sort of buy that it is by him looking at the foliage. Again, sadly I cannot make any larger.

I will say that of his paintings I could find I did not see any other ones with animals in them and the hogs are much of the charm for me in this painting. His landscapes seem to generally be at more of a distance as seen in the others shown above, mostly pulled off a facebook page devoted to people looking for info on the artist. (I will attempt to post a link to this later but at least maybe anyone searching him in the future will benefit from all the pieces I have pulled together.)

Going back to this painting, I like the pattern made by this hand hewn fence winding through the picture, a slightly oversized crow perches on it. Piles of sticks are on the other side of the fence from where these big fellows are enjoying a bit of a wallow in a mud holes and wandering up this path. They appear to have a hog house further back and one fellow (or gal) is having a rub on a tree. It is very evocative of its place and time.

Tiny at bottom of frame; I think this was made by a label maker.

Finally, I want to draw you attention to the tiny sign at the bottom of the painting which says, Culhwch. (It looks like it was printed on a labeling machine.) This Welsh name appears to refer to a figure in Welsh mythology (Arthurian story?), whose mother was frightened by swine when pregnant with him – he is later found in a pigsty and taken to his father, no further mention of his mother and he goes on to do all sorts of things – none additionally related to pigs. It is a bit complicated for the uninitiated, even on Wikipedia. It is (sort of) pronounced Kill-hook. The swine reference is clear but interesting for him to have in mind and where did it come from I wonder.

This wonderful little painting now proudly hangs just outside the kitchen here in New Jersey where you can get up close and get a good look at it. Although I am partial to cats I wouldn’t have missed this pig painting and am very glad to have it as part of the extended Pictorama collection!

Carrots for the New Year?

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This odd little postcard was among the ones I picked up at the big sale earlier in the fall. I don’t know why but in my mind I identified these as turnips but they do indeed seem to be carrots.

In a house full of cats (quite literally at the moment) I am here to say I rarely find one playing with a carrot or two, but here are these two kittens, be-ribboned, showing real interest in two. A while ago there was an online meme of cats being afraid of bananas (incidentally, the New York cats do not seem to be performing to type on that) and the internet tells me it is both the smell and because they recognize the shape as a snake and instinct kicks in. I have always doubted that the New York duo have much in the way of survival instinct and perhaps this goes to prove it. I gather it applies to cucumbers too and I could test the Jersey Five – I suspect Peaches will attack it with vigor. Her instincts seem perfectly intact.

Meanwhile, the internet is a bit vague on the point of carrots as a symbol of the New Year (turnips actually fare a bit better) on that score. In other cultures (Jewish New Year, Chinese) carrots seem to be a symbol but not really for January 1. However, this was indeed mailed on December 31, 1906 so no question of the intention there. There are allusions to slices of carrots looking like coins and bringing good fortune. l assume these tabby kittens know something we do not. It’s a bit hard to understand what the creator of the card was thinking – let’s do kittens and carrots he said to himself.

The kits have a carrot each, large and small, as well as bows and bells. The one seems to be tackling the large one. The other one, more timid, just looks on. Below them A Happy New Year. The company that produced the card appears to be J.P. Belle, just identified as Belle in the lower right corner here. Founded in Paddington in 1881 it produced cards until 1939. The official name of the company was J.P. Beagles.

This postcard was addressed to: Madam Donshea, 22 East 21st St. New York City. It was mailed from Jersey City at 3:30 on December 31, just under the wire I would say.

It has me contemplating what I might cook up today and I have promised a friend this recipe so I thought I would share it with you as well. It is a good vegetarian base I use as a jumping off point for all kinds of soups to use up whatever is in the house at the moment. I do it by instinct now so I hope I have given complete instructions. Feel free to ask questions! Happy and healthy New Year to you all!

A photo of the soup taken a while back but you get the idea. this version may have had spinach in it.

Miso Soup Recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 1 heaping tablespoon miso paste (dissolve in a small bowl of water
  • 2 carrots, sliced thin
  • 3 cloves of garlic minced
  • 1 tablespoon gingerroot, chopped
  • Salt, pepper, bay (2 leaves), dried basil and oregano to taste. (I like Maresh red pepper which is a mild red pepper, but you can use black pepper.)
  • half a large red onion
  • 2 containers of vegetable stock
  • 1 container extra firm tofu (shrimp could be substituted)
  • Small bowl dried mushrooms (soaked in water – reserve the water for the broth)
  • Green beans (frozen or fresh) trimmed to bite sized
  • Fresh mushrooms, chopped, optional.
  • Half a cup wine or sherry to deglaze
  • 3 chopped scallions
  • Italian flatleaf parsley
  • Frozen dumplings or pantry gnocchi as desired
  • Also optional: sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, mirin and balsamic vinegar. If you want this spicy jalapeno peppers can also be added.

Instructions:

Start the miso softening in water, mushrooms in a separate bowl.
Chop the onion, carrots, green beans, gingerroot and garlic and soften in olive oil. (If you are using shrimp add them after.) Add salt and pepper. Chop the parsley and set aside. Cut the tofu in bite size pieces and put aside.
Deglaze the pan with the wine or sherry. Add the dried mushrooms and liquid and then the broth and then the tofu. Bring to a boil and add the parsley, scallions and tofu.
Season to taste and add the optional seasoning now. Keep at a boil for a few minutes and then simmer and continue to adjust seasoning – I almost always need salt at this stage.
If using dumplings add them at the end, if frozen when the soup is at a boil, but just before serving or they will fall apart.
This essential base is a good vegetarian option for a number of soups – sometimes I add beans instead of tofu, or shrimp. Any number of vegetables can be added, corn is a favorite, diced tomato and sometimes I use creamed corn to thicken the soup as well – but potatoes can be used to thicken it too.

Snow Person

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Pam’s Pictorama.com Photo Post: Today we woke to several inches of snow and more falling so this card seemed like the logical item for today. Purchased a few weeks ago on eBay, I brought it to New Jersey figuring I might have a big opportunity to post it – and right I was.

No judging my nascent shoveling as shown from upstairs.

First thing this morning had me out for a rare morning of snow shoveling. Ouch! I am perhaps a bit long in the tooth to adopt this as an occupation – today’s snow, shoveled early, was pretty light but already forming and icy layer under it so it was best to get it done early, or at least the first go at it. I don’t have much skill at this shoveling thing although my mom always did it until she grew too old and then she hired someone. I have someone who comes when I am not here or it is too hard, although he is nursing a bad respiratory infection so another reason to give Fitzroy a break.

Snowy backyards from upstairs.

Clearly, we are here in New Jersey, having our holiday break. The New York cats adapted fairly quickly to their surroundings and even Cookie is wandering down the stairs with some curiosity about the house at large. Peaches, the meanest of the Jersey Five, is still hissing at us but allowing me to get every closer before she starts. (Not Kim, he still gets the big hiss early on!) Blackie has made his way upstairs to see his sister, eat her food and give her a hard time. (We separate them here for that reason – we’d never get any rest otherwise. The fighting will continue back in NYC for a bit before it subsides.)

Yesterday, we wandered into Red Bank despite the plummeting temperatures ahead of the snow. I made some interesting acquisitions but more about that to come in future posts.

Kim in his temporary studio earlier today. Snow out the window.

Anyway, this is an odd card. It was sent from Berlin to Monte Video on September 9, 1908. It is too hard to read the full foreign address but it was sent to Herr Christianson with no note on the back and one I am unable to translate on the front. (If someone else can, please share a translation!)

What got me was this strange snowman, slightly strange looking girl (with a bit of a wicked expression on her face) who looks like she is whispering in his ear. She sports a pointed, witch-like hat with a bow. The snowman is complete artifice, is he painted? Perhaps painted on wood and cut out so she can be solidly behind him in her fur trimmed attire. He wears a sort of smushed (top?) hat, has a sort of long pipe and this cheery little broom. I especially like the snow, which I am guessing was a post production addition.

The top of the card, the best I can read it, has Gluckuches and Neujahr printed at the top. The latter seems to bring up German New Year’s cards which is what I think this is. Below is another (very delightful) card that came up when I search Neujahr. Sorry I missed this one on eBay!

Unfortunately not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection and produced by the same company. Champagne! Money falling! Not clear to me what the other woman is dropping – bills? cards?

So on a snowy Saturday in New Jersey less than a week before the New Year, I consider the upcoming one, more than a hundred years since this card was sent. I wonder what secrets of the New Year she whispered into the ear of the snowman and what tales of the year she’d have for the year to come for us today.

Deitch Studio: Christmas 2025

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Arguably the most popular day on the Pictorama calendar – the holiday card reveal – and here we are again! For the third year now, with Kim’s blessing, I have attempted all seven cats – the Jersey Five and the New York cats combined as the illustration. As has become our pattern, I draw it and he then redraws, traces and inks it. The cats have stayed true to my drawing as has the design. Us in the sleigh is more him and the moon has become a good old Deitchian moon. I think it is a fair melding hybrid of our styles.

Kim noted that the cats look a bit like balloons here – of the Thanksgiving parade kind. Some more than others – Stormy hovering over Christmas is the most balloon like. (She is a pretty dreamy kitty. One of the last of the strays mom acquired.) Evidently a slow moving sleigh now that I reflect on it.

For the record and the curious, the top row from left to right are Blackie, Milty, Gus, Cookie and bottom row, Beau, Peaches and Stormy. Milty is the oldest and Peaches and Stormy roughly tie for youngest and last into the house. Cookie and Blackie are the only ones from the same litter (our New York kits) and Blackie and Beau share their all black cat-ness.

Front door at Thanksgiving.

As I do the card reveal this year I need to apologize a bit – it seems I have lost my address book which I have had since college. Although many addresses have migrated to my electronic book, many of the oldest ones have not and among those I don’t necessarily have emails or numbers to text either. Someone pointed out that the universe was trying to tell me something.

I didn’t see it at first but someone pointed out that Kim has candy cane horns – I must ask him if it was on purpose or if he was having subliminal Grampus urges. Now I don’t know how I missed it.

If you are new to the card reveal, this joint card project goes back to the first year Kim and I started dating (predating Pictorama by decades) and has developed over time. Some earlier examples can be found here, here and here.

As you read this on Sunday morning we will (hopefully) be packed up and on our way to New Jersey with Cookie and Blackie in tow. We spent today (Saturday) organizing and filling boxes and suitcases so the cats are suspicious – sleeping on the bed with one eye slightly open I’d say.

When we get to the house I am anxious to see if my holiday swags of evergreens have lasted on the front railings. I will take out my few holiday decorations – oversized colored lights will go in the fireplace, an elderly Santa made of lead skiing and a few other choice bits that will live on the mantle – one of the few cat free spaces in the house. (That of course is always subject to change if a cat is enterprising enough!)

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Hard to read beyond Mr. and Mrs. Will Claff. How on earth did this get delivered I wonder.

I thought I would bookend this post with another card I bought this fall. Sent on December 23, 1914. It was sent from Brockport, NY but the address is hard to read as is the message. Of course it was the idea of the nifty cat pull toy on the front that did it for me, bow and all. I like the little poem too which says, I send this kissy kat because I cannot go like Santa Claus, to give my Christmas love to you, or kiss you – as I’d like to do. So a Merry Christmas to you all – a few New Year’s cards tucked away next.

On Christmas Day Have Mirth and Laughter

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: We have a cat Christmas card entry of a jolly sort today, something to get us tuned up for Thursday.

Here in Manhattan, after about four inches of snow last week, we were awash in rain yesterday. (We’re talking street flooding – a lot of rain!) Although there is precipitation in the forecast for later this week, I’d gamble a guess that it will be a green Christmas in New Jersey. A few degrees either way though and we’ll see. Pretty as the snow is (see below for some photos of the house last week) I guess I am old enough to see the disadvantages of shoveling (or paying someone to!) and the slippery sidewalks and roads. We do like to take some long walks when we are out there. However, I wouldn’t mind a sprinkling for Christmas though to see if it could put me in the holiday mood a bit which I could use.

Snowy front yard in NJ last week! From a friend’s phone video.

The end of the calendar year is always a very busy time for fundraisers. I believe I have opined on this in the past and since the earliest days of my chosen career, the last weeks of the year have been fraught with either being too busy (at the Met) or not busy enough (my first years at Jazz).

My current gig combines its Top Dog Gala and its fiscal year end at the already very busy calendar year end. It’s pretty boffo. However, now in my second year end there I understand it a bit better and I am hoping for some down time, even while keeping an eye on things at the office. I am also old enough to know that we have a plan we’re executing and what will be will be. It isn’t really the sort of place, like the Met, where someone is going to decide they want to donate a valuable mortgaged piece of property in the last ten days of the year.

Decorating and setting up for Top Dog earlier this month.

Therefore in my adult life there has never really been a holiday season that has been free of work concerns. There was the year I left Jazz right before the end of the year, but that was a year of other losses and the holidays were a bit sad and full of the anxiety of a new job. Sometimes you just do the best you can do over the holidays.

The card at the top of the post sums it up well, Whatever fortune my come after, on Christmas Day have mirth and laughter. Mom and Dad cat (perched on an ottoman) are in an interesting composition of paws and tails. (The adult cats form a really great sort of central square with a paw and a tail leading us in and out!)

Their progeny, in kitten form, giggle and poke each other next to mom on the couch. There’s something about the furniture that makes me think that it is so specific it refers to real furniture somewhere in the artist’s life. It’s a very suburban and somewhat prosperous scene. Whatever their world weary worries are Mom and Dad cat chuckle together.

The artist knew cats. Dad cat is a proper orange marmalade and mom a darker orange and brown mix – producing an orange kit and as well as a black and white tabby. This combination certainly within the possibility of likelihood.

The copyright on the card is actually 1890 by a company called L. Prang and Company of Boston, USA. Below I share (in its entirety) an entry on Louis Prang via the Boston Public Library:

Louis Prang (1824-1909), a German immigrant, ran a highly successful printing firm in Boston during the late nineteenth century. His company produced high quality reproductions of major art work and greeting cards using the complex technique of chromolithography. Prang is often referred to as the ‘Father of the American Christmas Card’ because holiday cards were rarely exchanged in America until his factory began producing them in the 1870s.

A quick look at his other wares in terms of Christmas cards does not show many of this type. He generally seemed to go in more for arty reproductions of flowers and holly. There is a tiny signature for the artwork, EBW. I cannot find tracks on him, perhaps his foray into cat cards was brief – or he eventually expanded his signature.

This card was never sent but in faded pencil on the back, in script, it says, John Peckham.

78th Street on our way to Orwasher’s last Sunday.

So today’s card is a shot over the bow for those of us who are having trouble getting the the holiday spirit. I will spend my day packing us up for our 2-3 week sojourn in New Jersey. And cleaning the apartment – I like to come home to start the New Year in a reasonably clean apartment.

Tomorrow is the 2025 Deitch Studio card reveal. For ongoing readers, you knew it was coming! For now however, try to insert a bit of ho, ho, ho into your proceedings and if not, at least for the day later this week!

Paul Pilz

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I am taking a break from holiday influenced item posts (but evidently still devoted to dogs), to bring you an item I purchased at an odd venue last weekend. An ad on Instagram for an Oddities Flea Market (@odditiesfleamarket) caught my eye and on a whim I paid for tickets for Kim and I to go. I knew most of it would not be of interest to me, but I figured that maybe 25-30% of the vendors might be interesting. The line to enter (even with tickets) went down West 18th Street at the Metropolitan Pavilion and evidently it is an annual affair with a devoted following I have just never heard of previously.

The percentage of Pam’s Pictorama type vendors was perhaps a tad lower than 25%, but black cat items sort of did have a big moment there and I ended up making a not insignificant number of purchases in the end – and could easily have spent even more. One thing that got away at this table was an old orange ceramic cat that lit up. It had already been broken and repaired and I would say the ability to get it to light up seemed dubious, but in the end it just seemed too fragile to come live here at Deitch Studio. Still, I imagine that it must have a great orange glow if you could get it working. Anyway, you will be the beneficiaries of those interesting tidbits I did buy in coming weeks and this is the first of them I am sharing.

This photo postcard came from a vendor who had a nice little cache of black cat and other interesting items. After shelling out for some bigger items I pawed through some excellent (and reasonably priced) boxes of photo postcards. I plucked out two, and Kim one, and today I share the first of them now.

A quick search of Paul Pilz turns up a fairly thorough blog post on him which can be found here. I have nicked this other photo of Pilz from that site. It is a larger shot of him but very similar.

Alternate version of the same publicity photo, seems like this one was used pre-War however – not in Pictorama.com collection.

I won’t endeavor to repeat what that post has to say, but between that site and AI I learned that Pilz was evidently part of a traveling troupe on what is described as very small stages with a dog act, accompanied by him on the trumpet and doing comedy. This popular act ultimately morphed into one where he was a featured performer entertaining the German troops during WWI. (Wanderfheafer Armee Abf. A. on this card – they were already an army headliner. I shudder in horror some indeed at the idea of what traveling with a troop of dogs entertaining troops during WWI might have been like although for the dogs it might have been the best of gigs and options.)

Although I generally collect images of animal imitators (some posts on those can be found here and here for starters) I do have a sub-genre of photos that feature acts (here is one of several) and these seem to belong here too.

There was a recent article in the New York Times about a dog act at the Big Apple Circus (at this time it can be found here, entitled The Show Stealing Dogs of the Big Apple Circus) and so I had a moment recently to contemplate the treat filled world of dog tricks. I like the part where the trainer says if they mess up (balk at jumping through a hoop for example) he just makes it part of the act.

From the NYT article, performing pups.

Years ago Kim took me to a cat circus (Russian) performing downtown here in New York. I even had my photo taken with the ringmaster – for a price of course. I loved it! The photo hangs on an overflowing corkboard near our computer where a drawing of Kim (by Dave Collier’s son who visited about a year ago), something about Carter De Haven and an long ago article on a nascent Ugly Betty cover it. I wanted to pet the kitties which was, understandably, not encouraged. From the perspective of having seen that, I will say, cats or dogs, performing is a treat filled activity and I can only assume it is the rigorous work outs that keep the animals trim.

Under his name it says, roughly translated, with self-written repertoire – I guess a way of saying original gags? It declares Humor at the top, in case the photo didn’t alert you. The sort of masked characters on either side of that are a bit terrifying. Urns of flowers are on either side and a decorative bow tied image of him make up this card.

In the photo he presents a comical character with his trumpet, and his dog in his arms held like a baby. He looks at the dog and the pup looks out at the camera. I’m not sure but this photo may have been artificially put together from two – it doesn’t quite fit as a real image. I’m not sure I can entirely follow the concept of a dog act driven by trumpet playing. It sounds – loud!

This card is a bit tatty but was never mailed, no writing on the back and therefore no date certain, except that it clearly was during the war. I wonder if these were given out to troops when they were performing – and how strange that if so it has survived all these years just to land here in December of New York City of 2025 and find its way to the Pictorama library.

Dog Show

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s card showed up while I was looking for holiday gifts for a few staffers – it was a gift fail so to speak. I never would have found it however, if I had not been searching around in dog photos on eBay, where I generally do not belong.

Some of you more longstanding readers might remember its sister card shown below which I wrote about all the way back in 2016. At the time it was a hotly contested card which I had lost and subsequently won as outlined in that post which you can read here. Obviously that one turned up in my feed because of the cat reference.

Pam’s Pictorama.com Collection. From a previous post.

While these two cards are definitely of a piece, the Dog Show sign is definitely the same, there are some differences. While I am fairly certain this is the same woman and dog (same Dog Show sign) she is wearing a different outfit in each. The Cat Show Next card is entitled Beastly Affairs.

However, most notably the Cat Show Next card has a different, patterned floor, the other one is a plain wood. A very careful look (lower right corner) shows that the copyright for these two cards is a year apart with the cat version being earlier by a year, 1907 although my copy of that card was mailed in 1909. So did it prove so popular they brought out this variation the next year? I wonder if there are more.

Today’s card is called Going to the Dogs. Unlike the earlier card, this one has writing on the back although no stamp or evidence of mailing so I don’t know when the writing, in pencil, was added. To the best of my ability to read it, it says, Bascom this is Ednice Jain. Look good & she has gone to the Dogs good – Ha Ha Ha. She is a Dog catcher & not 1/2 as good as one. An odd note, no name signing it.

I prefer the earlier card somewhat and it is more than the cat show reference. The composition with the additional sign is a bit better and somehow holding the dog, and even the patterned floor, make it more dynamic. She has a bit of a smile in the first shot and a hat full of flowers – the hat in today’s card notably appears to have a whole bird on it. She wears a different fur trimmed jacket in both.

Unidentified card online with a Pitbull and similar woman but not the same series.

The card was made here in New York City by the Rotograph Company but printed in England, oddly enough. A quick search online does not turn up more cards in the series, but neither does it tie these two cards out to each other. I don’t even find more copies of either of them online, however above I have shared one that turns up that could almost be in the series.

My colleague will now get a card from 1908 with a big footed puppy, vaguely reminiscent of his own recently acquired little fellow. I will dig out my copy of the other card and a find a place to install them side by side, either here or in New Jersey. They make too a good story together to break apart.

What’s Up

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A flurry of purchases for holiday gifts is commencing and, although there may be one or two readers from the animal hospital who check in over here, I’m pretty sure I am safe posting this particular one in advance of giving it. My work gifts are largely of the canine kind – I must admit that my office is far heavier in pup than kit and therefore dogs are having their day once again here at Pictorama.

Those who have followed me in the years since I left Jazz for the animal hospital know that, especially for a devoted cat person, I now spend a lot of time with dogs. (In fact our annual Top Dog Gala where we celebrate a dog, class of dogs and/or supporter of the hospital’s non-profit mission, is Tuesday. A post about my first Top Dog can be found here. As these events go, dogs do make it a lot more fun!)

An early fall update was doggie indeed and I shared photos of our Paws & Pints event and perhaps our canine concert. (That can be found here.) Puppies and working Guide Dogs populated a Woof & Wine for the younger set interested in our work. So this cat woman is doing a lot of belly rubs and good boys with a whole new crowd. Seven cats means it is unlikely that there is a dog in our immediate future at Deitch Studio, but then again, you never know.

My first Top Dog back in December of ’23.

Meanwhile, as the holidays approach I have applied my same searching rules and know how to finding something to fit and personal to each of those recipients. (Last year I luckily stumbled on a number of small vintage prints of various kinds which made up about half the group.) In my shopping and searching I set a fairly low ceiling on the cost so it took a while for price and aesthetics to come together.

Really, I got lucky pretty fast and this card, mailed back in March of 1908, was one I could just purchase. (Another is on its way to me for a colleague who just got a puppy – his first pet in a number of years. He is a musician and almost got early canine related sheet music but the card I found for him looks like an early 20th century version of his pup!)

In this process I should admit that one photo has come to stay (an occupational hazard – more on that one in a future post) and I thought this one rated the Pictorama treatment. In this card a big footed fellow appears here in straw boater and spiffy collar better suited for a summer outing for the 4th of July than Christmas. A quick search tells me that this image was first distributed in 1906. The ultimate recipient of this card has smaller dogs but I think will like this early guy’s style.

Although it is postmarked March 5, 1906 I cannot read the location of the cancellation. It was sent to Miss Marion Deverance in Durant Okla Box 598 without a message; I guess they felt the card spoke for itself? It’s a simple image in black and white, really just depending on the props for the pup and also the sweet and somewhat urgent look in his eyes. This little fellow wants to please the person behind the camera – perhaps one holding a treat?

I amaze a bit at the difference between dogs and cats as I spend time with them these days. It’s pretty universal that cats hate going to the vet and the best you can hope for is one that doesn’t howl, or in the extreme, bite. Dogs are a mixed bag. Some seem (not all to be sure) to honestly be happy to enter our doors and see their doctor friends. Others are at least resigned as long as they are with mom or dad. There are some who, like the felines, just aren’t having it.

In general though, dogs are so much more social and enjoy participation in the world with their people in a way cats just cannot. I have had some success planning dog friendly events over these past two years. Finding establishments that can and will welcome dogs has been one of the interesting challenges. Our annual Living Legends luncheon typically honors a dog, cat and exotic animal setting the bar for that location even higher. (Bearded dragon welcome?) Meanwhile, we have a parrot joining its mom at our Gala next week, a moveable perch needed to be found for it so that it could join in some photo sessions. Again, this is a very different job! (For your information and in case you need one, Amazon had the perch.)

There are a smattering of dog friendly bars and restaurants uptown near me. Interesting to note that NYC parks are not especially friendly to dog gatherings, although the individual conservancies are willing the Parks Department gives us a thumbs down. I worked for Central Park for several years and am well aware of their leash laws but these have not been requests to have dogs off leash, just gatherings where people could bring them.

My hardbound copy of this book. I bought a bunch of paperbacks to give as thank you gifts this year at work.

Obviously fund raising for an animal hospital raises specific and different challenges from my years at Jazz and before that decades at the Metropolitan Museum. In some ways I am uniquely prepared with my deeply devoted pet past and present. And it’s not all about dogs – donors to a new cat fund for needed emergency surgeries has received May Sarton’s book, The Fur Person which I wrote about in a post that can be found here.

I hope my colleagues will like their canine cards and other holiday treats and that next year, my third, further indicates that I am getting the hang of this fundraising for animals thing right.

Wow – it’s Holiday Wain!

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s post is a fantastic item purchased a couple of months ago and framed up to take to New Jersey. As I write this it is a bit hard to know best to show it to you all. I took these photos before it was framed but not sure I can present it as a whole so let’s see how I do. I apologize for the reflections in the photos – I took some before framing it but the ones I am taking today are better I think.

This is an illustrated Christmas insert titled A Kitten’s Christmas Party in the Illustrated London News from 1886, so early days for Mr. Wain. (For some biographical info on Louis Wain and a few of my holdings have a read at posts here, here and here just for starters.) I believe he did a series of these that go into the aughts and maybe beyond – these were his big break I belied. These are noted as pages 24 and 25 in the newspaper and I assume where a centerspread. At the bottom it reads, Drawn by Louis Wain. (Wain also did extremely well with Christmas card designs throughout his career so the holidays were a bonanza for him.)

The fold was more evident before framing as seen here. This is a close up of “all who came to the party”.

It is about 18″ x 28″. Considering the age of this newsprint it is in good condition with just the original fold. I did spring for UV protected glass for this when framing. I am afraid that even in a spot that doesn’t get direct sun that it could fade and brown out quickly.

As you can see, you need to get close to it – obviously it was intended for inspection in a newspaper so that is the viewing range. The sort of montage effect has made it a bit harder to get close up’s of each snippet – which are all listed neatly at the bottom as follows:

  • We write out letters of invitation to the aristocracy and a lot more besides.
  • Who all come to the party.
  • Our preparations are extensive.
  • The after-dinner speeches were a great success.
  • And so was the ball.
  • Some of the party seek amusement under the mistletoe.
  • Others we invite to a mouse-hunt.
  • And the fun waxes fast and furious, when we form a ring and play at hunt-the-slipper.
  • Alas! In early morning we are compelled to sit in solemn council to devise a means to break up the party, as the kittens won’t go. A terrier ghost – the very thing!
  • Our plan is effectual.
  • And we retire, worn out, and sleep the sleep of peace and dream of mice and dicky-birds.
Messy kits! Don’t give cats ink. Look at the one with one eye closed as he writes!

I am a particular fan of the panel of them writing out their letters of invitation. One cat completely covered in ink at the far left, using the spilled bottle of ink, the thoughtful pose as the white cat contemplates his missive and another examines his. Someone needs a nap (such exhausting work) and one tabby is copying off the other – can’t think for himself.

Tidying up!

You need to know that there are tiny numbers in the left corner of each image corresponding to the notes above. I mention this because it does not read like a traditional comic strip from left to right. One, two and three are down the left, you jump up to the top again for four and so on. Kim says that this really is early days of comics so it makes sense that the conventions had not yet evolved fully.

At the ball. Please note that I didn’t cut this off at the left – it is how it was reproduced.

We see a bit of tidying up for the party – the aristocrat (aristocats dare I say?) all march in subsequently looking a bit like the cat mafia. The scene of the after-dinner speeches is pure Louis Wain for me with the monocled fellow speechifying. The ball, in the center, is only clearly identifiable by the cat band playing in the background, but we see the kitty canoodling under the mistletoe too.

Kissing kitties with voyeurs on the left and speeches on the right.

I have learned that hunt-the-slipper is a game where you pass a slipper (shoe perhaps in today’s parlance?) or small object and try to fool the person hunting about who has it. (I have finally found a good use for AI – it explained this to me.) And we are a bit appropriately huffy puffy here. We are spared too much gore for the mouse hunt with one cat discretely looking in a trap and we see only a mouse tail – although the expressions on the cats faces peering over are also pure Wain-ness with a fillip and dash of pure insanity.

Cat Council top and the ghost dog chases the kittens home.

The tale goes a bit off the rails where the kittens won’t go home and a council dreams up the ghost of a terrier to chase them out – which appears to work. Cats run in horror from a ghostly dog form rising up above them.

A bit horrifying, hunt-the-mouse.
Hunt-the-slipper. Could get rough! Wonder who has it...Meanwhile cats on the sidelines watching and something going on around a stage in the back.

We end however with another great image which will become classic Wain, all the kitties asleep in bed (some hiding their eyes and noses) and dreaming of mice and dickey-birds!

Wain has a later print variation on this idea.

I was lucky and somehow grabbed this from a live auction in Great Britain for very little money – shipping it here and framing it cost far more although very worth it. It is heading to New Jersey with us in a couple of weeks where I intend to hang it in our bedroom or Kim’s studio – some place where we can get close to see it but where it won’t get too much light – even with the UV glass. I think it deserves to remain pristinely preserved. I hope you have enjoyed your trip through it today.