Here are six of the most admired moggies from our new book, CAT. This whimsical new visual survey celebrates humanity’s enduring connection to our feline friends, taking readers on a journey to discover the endless ways the house cat has inspired artists and image-makers across continents and cultures.
For the book, we narrowed a literally limitless choice down to 211 spectacular images, selected in collaboration with an international panel of experts that includes curators, cat behaviorists, artists, and even the founding director of New York’s first Cat Museum.
The book opens with a foreword by New York Times bestselling author and renowned kitten rescuer Hannah Shaw aka Kitten Lady, while an introduction by Leïla Jarbouai, a curator at Paris’s Musée d’Orsay, traces humanity’s relationship with cats through the lens of visual culture. Here is a quick look at five of our favorite feline friends from the book. When you've read through our selection take a closer look at CAT.
ADOLPH E. WEIDHAAS - Brünnhilde, 1936
Picture credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Gelatin silver print, 4¾ × 3½ in. / 12 × 9 cm
In Norse mythology, the princess Brünnhilde was the most famous of all the Valkyries, the “shield maidens” of the god Odin who carried the souls of dead warriors to Valhalla. Her reputation continued all the way into the nineteenth century through her role in German composer Richard Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (1857). With her horned helmet and breastplate armor, the warrior maiden’s image has been seared into the collective consciousness far beyond the opera house, as this photograph can attest. Taken by Adolph E. Weidhaas (1891–1971), a pioneer in the field of American advertising photography, this tabby Valkyrie was used to advertise a performance of Wagner’s opera in 1936. The photograph was originally displayed with images of other cats in operatic costume, prominently placed in the window of the Snapshot Store on West 40th Street in New York, where it drew large crowds. A passerby described the throngs of people: “Elbowing closer we found the window filled with photographs of a cat dressed in costume for such operatic roles as Brunhild, Musetta, or the Bad Man in Girl of the Golden West.” Along with Bugs Bunny’s own unforgettable Brünnhilde costume, this handsome cat dressed in a winged helmet and breastplate is an indelible image of the shield maiden that appeals to new generations. Indeed, the feline Brünnhilde emerged as one of the most-loved images from a 2022 Library of Congress exhibition that mined its historic archives, Not an Ostrich: & Other Images from America’s Library.
THÉOPHILE ALEXANDRE STEINLEN - Tournée du Chat Noir de Rodolphe Salis, 1896
Picture credit: Color lithograph, 53½ × 37¾ in. / 135.9 × 95.9 cm. Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
Nicknamed the “Cat Man,” Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (1859–1923) was a preeminent artist during France’s Art Nouveau period, legendary for his depictions of his animal companions. It was a cat that made him famous: this poster of the feline mascot of Le Chat Noir, a cabaret in Paris’s Montmartre neighborhood, is his best-known work and a veritable icon of fin-de-siècle Paris. Opened by Rodolphe Salis in 1881, Le Chat Noir was the meeting place of literary and artistic bohemia in the French capital. In the 1890s Salis organized a company of performers from the cabaret to go on tour during the summer months and commissioned Steinlen to create an eye-catching poster that would advertise this traveling revue. The cabaret’s name is said to have come from a lost black cat that was found on the sidewalk during the construction work of the building, but it could also be a reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 short story of the same name (see p.79), translated into French by Charles Baudelaire, another great cat lover. For this design, Steinlen was inspired by the memory of one of his old feline friends from
childhood, shining like the sun with its black fur gleaming. The void of the black cat also evokes the cutout silhouettes of shadow theater that were in vogue in cabarets at the time. Whatever the source, the crepuscular animal, whose color had long been associated with the devil in some cultures, was the perfect embodiment of the cabaret’s rebellious spirit.
LEE SANGSOO - Sitting Cat (Siamese), 2024
Picture credit: Paint on resin, 15¾ × 13¾ × 10¼ in. / 40 × 35 × 26 cm. Private collection
The elegant posture of a seated Siamese cat is deftly evoked by the entwined forms of this sinuous resin sculpture. South Korean artist Lee Sangsoo (b. 1983) is renowned for the refined simplicity of his threedimensional animals, which find their inspiration in the small semiabstract drawings of Pablo Picasso, an artist famed for his masterful ability to capture the essence of his subjects with just a few simple lines. The Spanish artist was a great lover of animals and kept three Siamese cats as pets. Lee is similarly fond of these sleek creatures and, here, he economically balances line, plane, and color to reveal the
enigmatic beauty of the feline form. As with all the artist’s works, which he describes as “drawings in the air,” this minimalist sculpture began life in his sketchbook, where he worked to capture the essence of the cat before digitizing his drawing, further developing it in software and finally realizing the piece with a 3D printer. The raw resin was then painted in light cream and chocolate brown hues to re-create the distinctive point coloration typical of Siamese cats, where darker extremities appear on a pale body. The Siamese cat is one of several breeds native to Thailand (formerly Siam), where they were once associated with royalty. As a result of their highly social nature, they became one of the most popular pedigree pets in Europe and North America after their introduction there in the late nineteenth century.
M.CHAT M.Chat, Brussels, 2022 - Graffiti
Picture credit: M.Chat, Photo: Ferdinand Feys Graffiti, dimensions variable
Encouraging passersby to look upward, this bright yellow cat grins effusively from a Brussels rooftop. The jaunty character, known as M.Chat (also Mr. Chat or Monsieur Chat), is the creation of Franco-Swiss street artist Thoma Vuille (b. 1977), who also goes by the same moniker as his creation, and is regularly seen in urban centers worldwide, from New York City and Hong Kong to São Paulo and Dakar. Characterized by a huge Cheshire Cat grin (see p.21), the benevolent feline brings joy and optimism to the drab, city environments in which he appears. Although M.Chat is often portrayed mid-leap, he sometimes flies with angel wings, emerges from a hole, or, as here, points to the sky. But whatever his pose, he is always grinning. Vuille began painting graffiti in 1992, although it wasn’t until 1997, when he was a student at the Orléans School of Art and Design in France, that M.Chat was born, first appearing on the city’s rooftop chimneys and later on walls elsewhere in France, Europe, and the world. The iconic character has since become something of a cultural icon in France and was even the subject of a 2004 Chris Marker documentary, The Case of the Grinning Cat. Painting in secret, Vuille managed to protect his anonymity for more than a decade, but in 2007 he was apprehended by the police while working on a mural. The ensuing trial, which resulted in a suspended sentence, saw the prices of Vuille’s gallery works soar, along with the popularity of his most famous creation.
THOM BROWNE - Cat Bag, 2018
Picture credit: Courtesy of Thom Browne. Leather and brass
No one plays at the intersection of playful and preppy like Thom Browne (b. 1965). Originally a tailor before joining brands, such as Giorgio Armani and Club Monaco, the American fashion designer launched his own menswear business in 2001. He created madeto-measure suits by appointment only, and just two years later he presented his first collection at New York Fashion Week. His reinterpretation of men’s suiting, featuring modernized cuts and revamped proportions while staying committed to traditional colors—especially his favored gray and navy—helped him find his footing early. Browne started his first full women’s collection in 2011 and rose to national prominence when Michelle Obama wore one of his designs to her husband’s presidential inauguration in 2013. The designer introduced what would become his best-known handbag, the Hector—a dachshund-shaped purse named and modeled after Browne’s own pooch—in 2016. Animal bags, carried by fashionistas of all genders, have been a mainstay in Browne’s runway presentations, where the menagerie of creatures adds a fanciful note to his crisp, tailored silhouettes. This black cat bag, introduced in 2018, is crafted from calfskin with a brass chain and details. It also features a surprise: both the neck and tail of this kitty are hinged, making this accessory wearable—and posable—art. Superb quality of craftsmanship and forward thinking are hallmarks of the Thom Browne brand, and many of his pieces, including this one, carry his unmistakable red-white-and-bluestriped signature.
ANDY HOLDEN - Cat-tharsis, 2022
Picture credit: Courtesy Andy Holden and Charles Moffett, New York, Photo: Thomas Barratt. 90 cat figurines and HD video with music by The Grubby Mitts, 17 min. Private collection
When his ninety-year-old grandmother died, British artist Andy Holden (b. 1982) was bequeathed eight cardboard boxes containing her extensive collection of cat figurines. Holden transformed their unboxing into an artwork. The feline forms are filmed being unwrappedfrom newspaper and briefly displayed on his hand. The artist narrates a deadpan monologue accompanied by lounge jazz music, which is sometimes melancholic, sometimes whimsical. He notes in his voice-over that while his grandmother’s living room was filled from floor to ceiling with these cats, she never had a real one as a pet, and she only started collecting around the time of her husband’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Holden cites facts about cats: the disproportionate percentage of cat characters in cartoons and how, in 2021, there were an estimated 6.5 billion cat pictures on the Internet. He observes the ornaments’ kitsch designs: big eyes, neckerchiefs, and painted floral patterns on their coats. He reveals personal insights: that he cannot recall the names of any of the seventy-three cat breeds and that he had an early erotic response to Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman in the film Batman Returns (1992). Presented alongside displays of the collection, as pictured here, Cat-tharsis ultimately concludes that Holden’s grandmother was driven by the psychological impulse to collect more than any particular interest in this domestic animal per se, yet their easy availability in the charity shops from which she acquired them reveals a shared cultural love for cats in all shapes and forms.
