Sit!: The Dog Portraits of Thierry Poncelet

by Thierry Poncelet, Bruce McCall

Text by Bruce McCall. "Exceptional book . . . the best of humor . . . refreshing. Delightful!" is how George Booth describes Sit! in The New York Times Book Review. Working in the dog-as-person-as-art vein of William Wegman (but at the other end of the spectrum), Theirry Poncelet combs flea markets and antique shops for ancestral portraits; restores them brush-stroke by brush-stroke; and then seamlessly paints in a dog's head over the subject's. The resulting tour de force is a fantasy that looks uncaninely real. Selection of the Book-of-the Month Club.

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 11, 1993

Reviews

[Gerald McFarland · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a slight but entertaining book. It contains eighty-one pages of dog portraits, one per page, each dressed in human attire and representing a fictional character. Among the artists and aesthetes is Le Vicomte de Dogerelle. Lord Gristle is a leading figure among the tycoons. Reflecting in their names the canine character of the featured figures, one finds the French scientist Madame Dr. Hortense de Mops and, in Chapter VIII, Baron Lutz von Wag, a "Person of Great Affairs." Each of the skillfully drawn portraits is accompanied by an amusing account of the sitter's (or, in some cases, the setter's) personality and career. Good for lots of laughs.

[wildct2003 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skip the text, look at the paintings.