> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # A Charming Cat-alog of John Craxton’s Kittens - URL: https://hyperallergic.com/a-charming-cat-alogue-of-john-craxton-kittens/ - Published: 2024-10-28T19:43:20.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-24T15:08:10.000Z - Description: John Craxton would see the animal mid-action and think, that’s another picture. On the occasion of National Cat Day, here are some of his most fantastic felines. - Author: David Carrier - Tags: Book Review, Books, Cats, Review, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-large, #Import 2025-11-24 09:36 (2023, 2024, part 2) The other day, I opened my front door, and a cat from up the street was sitting alone on my porch — a strange creature, just looking. Not everyone loves cats. Me, I think them charming because they are essentially wild creatures with alien intelligences that are small enough to live with. John Craxton — a figurative painter, gay man, one-time friend of Lucian Freud, and English philhellene who passed away in 2009 — was a fellow cat-appreciator who painted them throughout his life. He found that felines were the perfect models: Give them a little bit of fish and they’d pose. He would see the animal mid-action and think, that’s another picture. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/08/wxuf8.jpg) John Craxton, "Cat playing with mouse" (2006) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/08/d9xtt.jpg) John Craxton, "Cat and mouse" (2006–07) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/08/z8aif.jpg) John Craxton, "Tiddles with legs crossed" (c. 2008) In [*Craxton’s Cats*](https://bookshop.org/a/539/9780500028049?ref=hyperallergic.com) (2024), written by Andrew Lambirth, we find shy cats and aggressive cats; dancing cats, happy and angry cats; cats asleep and cats fighting with other cats; cats with birds, with mice, and of course, with fish. His “Confrontational Cats”(1977), in which their two bodies are merged in a scrawl of dense black lines, is a small masterpiece, as is “Cats on a Ladder” (1984), in which one seems to help the other up. Craxton, like some cat-lovers, was an odd fellow: He was known to concoct bad puns in his invented language, “Anglo-Craxton,” calling painter’s block, for instance, “procraxtonation.” So, of course, we find a panoply of strange cats: In “Marmalade Cat in Mirror”(1994–95), for instance, an orange-and-green spotted cat paws at itself in the mirror, only one eye visible. You might call the book a cat-alogue of Craxton’s subjects. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/08/mqzvr.jpg) John Craxton, "Cat and mouse under a fig tree" (1957) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/08/nd9tj.jpg) John Craxton, "Cockerel and cat" (1957) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/08/q5gjx.jpg) John Craxton, "Cat" (1958) In [*The Order of Things: An Archeology of Human Sciences*](https://bookshop.org/a/539/9780679753353?ref=hyperallergic.com)(1966)*,* the French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault quotes Jorge Louis Borges’s non-standard classification of different kinds of animals: “belonging to the Emperor, embalmed, tame, sucking pigs, sirens, fabulous …. \[animals\] that from a long way off look like flies.” Categories of classification matter, Foucault argues, because they organize thinking. *Craxton’s Cats*, therefore,suggests a defamiliarization of art history. Typical art historical writing hones in on visual analysis of specific works to place them within a social context, sometimes drawing on the artist’s personality. By centering just one subject, *Craxton’s Cats* offers a new way into the artist’s oeuvre — as well as invites viewers to share in his obsession. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/08/y4eii.jpg) John Craxton, "Dancing cats" (c. 1970s) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/08/darjf.jpg) John Craxton, "Cat and goldfish" (1975) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/08/r2tgc.jpg) John Craxton, "Smudge begging" (1978) Perhaps *Craxton’s Cats* will inaugurate a sequence of innovative studies: Théodore Gericault’s horses, Gustave Courbet’s dogs, and Jean Siméon Chardin’s monkeys. A history of Modernism told through felines would have to discuss the black cat in Edouard Manet’s “Olympia” (1863), the seductive cats of Balthus, Andy Warhol’s screenprinted cats, George Herriman’s *Krazy Kat* (1913–44) *—* and, of course, Craxton’s cats. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/08/rad0j.jpg) John Craxton, "Cat stealing fish" (c. 1990s) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/08/lav0f.jpg) John Craxton, "Cats and chair" (1997) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/08/imchu.jpg) John Craxton, "Ten Puss Fugit" (c. 1994) [Craxton's Cats](https://bookshop.org/a/539/9780500028049?ref=hyperallergic.com) *(2024), written by Andrew Lambirth and published by* [*Thames & Hudson*](https://thamesandhudson.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*, is available for purchase online and in bookstores.*