At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), there’s a captivating self-portrait of the artist Joan Brown hugging Donald, her resplendent tabby cat.
“She is holding onto Donald so tightly,” SFMOMA associate curator of painting and sculpture Nancy Lim said recently while touring the museum’s current major retrospective of the late San Francisco artist. “It’s not just an embrace. It’s something more.”
Every day, millions of people around the world post pictures and videos of their pets online. According to a recent OnePoll survey, one in four people in the U.S. have social media accounts for their furry friends. But the tradition of creating and sharing such images goes back about 300 years in painting and sculpture.
