February 14, 2005

BY CELESTE KATZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

If popularity were a true measure of worth, then the two paintings being auctioned off Tuesday would be worth millions.

Instead, these two authentic icons of Americana - a group of dogs smoking cigars and playing poker around a table - are expected to fetch a fraction of that at the Doyle Gallery auction on the upper East Side.

The first of the 1903 Cassius Coolidge paintings, "A Bold Bluff," shows a St. Bernard with a lousy poker hand playing it cool. The second, "Waterloo," shows the big dog raking in the chips while his pals howl in dismay.

The two oil paintings on canvas - not the velvet ones found in many dens and basements across America - are on display at Doyle through Tuesday. They will be sold as part of the gallery's annual Dogs in Art auction and together expect to draw $30,000 to $50,000 - or much more, considering the poker craze of late.

"[There] are probably millions of reproductions, and to have the originals is very important," said Alan Fausel, director of paintings at Doyle and an appraiser for "Antiques Roadshow" on PBS.

Although the images first became popular at the turn of the century, they remain hot. A quick search of eBay for "dogs playing poker" turned up 241 items last week, including a rhinestone purse, a set of seven buttons and a red "Playing Dogs Lounge Rockabilly Shirt" that only a really brave man would wear.

Besides giving the world the indelible image of gambling canines, upstate New York-born Coolidge also invented what he called the Comic Foreground - the cardboard cutouts that let carnivalgoers be photographed as strongmen or fat ladies, for example.