Cassius Marcellus Coolidge was a United States painter best known for a series of nine paintings of anthropomorphized Dogs Playing Poker. Born in upstate New York to abolitionist Quaker farmers, Coolidge was known to friends and family as "Cash." While he had no formal training as an artist his natural aptitude for drawing lead him to create cartoons for his local newspaper when in his twenties. He is credited with creating Comic Foregrounds, life-size cutouts into which one’s head was placed so as to be photographed as an amusing character. His paintings inspired American illustrator Arthur Sarnoff who is famous for his Dogs Playing Pool style paintings.