Some of the crazy cat lady mythology may have its origins in the associations between cats and witches, which dates from the Middle Ages. From the 15th through to the 18th centuries, women were accused of being witches and, because cats were associated with witchcraft, Satanism and evil, thousands were killed during that time.

Melbourne author Anna Go-Go examines some of these pop culture ideas in her new book Cat Lady Manifesto, published later this month. She reclaims the Cat Lady descriptor as empowering and argues oppression, judgment and misogyny are all mixed up with cats and a fear of women claiming their power to live freely. “Being a cat lady is not only liberating – it’s joyful, glamorous, chock-full of meaning and very fulfilling,” she says.

As well as cat lovers from history such as Florence Nightingale and Elizabeth Taylor, Go-Go cites famous male ‘cat ladies’, including Abraham Lincoln – the first president to introduce them to the White House – Gustav Klimt who let his cats roam freely in his studios, Mark Twain who rented cats to keep him company, and Ernest Hemingway who kept dozens of cats. At least 60 – some descendants of the famous writer’s own cats – now roam around Hemingway’s former house in Key West, Florida, which has been turned into amuseum.

When Kylie Jenner spent around $15,000 on each of her four Italian greyhounds, the Kardashian clan member was following a revered tradition in art history. Greyhounds and whippets are the most commonly depicted dogs in art, with some of the earliest images going back to both Mesopotamia (the Ubaid Period ca. 5000 BC) and Egypt (ca. 4250 BC) when they were used for hunting but also kept as pets and guard dogs.

Dogs outnumber cats in art by a long shot, says the NGV’s curator of International Art, Laurie Benson. A self-declared mad cat man himself, Benson is co-curator of Cats & Dogs in Art, along with NGV’s Imogen Mallia-Valjan.

Showing at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Fed Square, the exhibition has been more than two years in the making and features more than 250 works documenting thousands of years of visual imagery of the animals in art and design. Featuring artists from Rembrandt and Durer, through to Jeff Koons and Emily Mayo, Nora Heysen and Grace Cossington Smith, the show reflects our timeless obsession with cats and dogs over millennia. It also includes an interactive allowing attendees to share photos of their pets in an online pet portrait gallery.

Very few artworks feature dogs and cats together, says Mallia-Valjan, which may reflect something of their perceived relationship in real life. While it was tricky to translate that to the wall, she says, it determined the curators’ approach to the design of the show: there are clearly defined dog sections and cat sections, and in some, the two appear to face off against each other.

“The split is not 50-50 in terms of the number of works because there were just more dogs in the collection,” she says. “[That’s] because they’re often in the background of large paintings and in all artworks, there are a lot more dogs that are just small, whereas the cat works are a lot more intimate and close up and focused on the cat.”

Both curators say Cats & Dogs was a joy to devise and many in the NGV team contributed ideas about what might be included. “All our colleagues pitched in and were just flooding us with stuff, everybody has got on board with the show. It’s really generated a lot of excitement in the building,” Benson says.

The divide between cats and dogs is something the curators riff on in the show. Because it is made up of works from the NGV’s collection, clear themes emerged quickly. One of the strongest was that of working dogs, Mallia-Valljan says, including guard dogs, sheep dogs, hunting dogs and a few depicting dogs in war.

“Throughout history, the dog has been used by humans as a worker, and that’s kind of where their place within domesticated society began,” she says. The oldest works in the collection appear in this section, with a piece from about 200 AD depicting beautiful Chinese guard dogs, through to contemporary works showing dogs on farms.

Interspersed through the show are films and video selected by ACMI curator Fiona Trigg, including some fabulous archival footage. There’s a clip from the Mawson Antarctic Expedition in 1916, shot by Frank Hurley, featuring silent footage of the sled dogs being fed, and pulling supply sledges, and an extract from A Man and His Dog, a 1952 Australian government documentary showing a kelpie being trained to muster sheep.

While dogs have long been valued for their friendship, unlike cats who are generally more self-sufficient, for some time that tended to be the domain of the wealthy. In the 16th century, women started being depicted in art with their small dogs, which were often called “comforters”. “The cost of keeping a comforter actually far outweighed the benefit of the dog to the household so it was a pure status symbol,” says Mallia-Valjan. “Lots of people couldn’t afford to keep dogs that weren’t providing for the household in a way other than comfort and friendship.”

In her work Maria of Mars, Melbourne-based artist Atong Atem takes that history of depicting wealthy women of status from Europe with lapdogs and subverts it, looking at how we can translate that imagery to migrant stories.

First Nations art from cave walls to contemporary offerings celebrate the long and rich relationship between people and their animals. This is documented in the section of the show called The coup and the Dingo – the coup referring to the crossbred dingoes and domesticated dogs, referred to as camp dogs throughout Australia, according to Benson. Some of the standout works are cheeky and playful sculptures made in Aurukun on the western side of Cape York. Writing in the show’s catalogue, curator of First Nations art at NGV Michael Gentle says these much-loved dogs are known as “ku”:“Not only do they illustrate notions of kin-centric camaraderie, ‘ku’ are also seen as tangible expressions of ancestral beings.”

Geography reflects different approaches to each animal: cats have had a more positive spiritual appreciation in Asian and Middle Eastern cultures, Benson says, and were worshipped as personifications of gods and goddesses from ancient Egyptian times. Conversely, in Christian-themed art, more dogs are depicted, generally used to represent ideas of faith and unconditional love.

He says cats were welcomed into the first settlements back when we stopped being nomads. “They were welcomed into those societies because they just did what they needed to do, which was protect stores from rodents and from snakes, even birds – and they were given shelter and affection and a regular meal in exchange.”

Even so, cats have always retained an almost wild element, he says, which is evident in the selection of the show called Cattitude. “The relationship that people have with cats, just the way that they draw them and the way that they paint them, the artists are really capturing the cats’ personalities. The unique, independent nature of the cat still comes through, and certainly comes through in the art.”

Sleeping cats and cats just doing their thing are featured in another part of the exhibition. One lovely example is Nora Heysen’s drawing of her cat with kittens from 1960. “One beautiful thing about these intimate studies of cats is they’re really rapidly drawn, they’re just sketches, capturing a moment and they’re usually personal,” Benson says. His favourite image featured is David Beal’s lovely black and white photograph Old woman and cat, Sydney, 1963.

The rich tradition of cats and dogs in Hollywood films is celebrated in a video essay at the end of the exhibition, created by ACMI’s Fiona Trigg. Called Dogs Can Act, Cats Would Prefer Not To. In film, dogs have long featured in good and bad lights – from Stephen King’s terrifying creation Cujo, to Lassie and Rin Tin Tin, who feature in Trigg’s montageperforming rescues and all sorts of stunts. Bluey is the latest addition, created by Queensland studio Ludo; the animated blue heeler and her family is the most downloaded kids TV show in the US.

One of the most famous feline celluloid characters, Felix the Cat created by Australian Pat Sullivan, gets a look-in at the NGV show, in the form of a soft toy loaned by ACMI to the gallery for this show. Drawn for the silent-film era, his moment in the sun was soon overtaken by a certain mouse created by Disney but he managed a comeback when featured in cartoons on American television in the 1950s.

Highlighted in Trigg’s film is the famous cat Orangey, who has his own listing on film website IMDB and turns up in several films, including Breakfast at Tiffany’s (playing Cat) and Jackie Gleason’s Gigot, and in Shirley Temple’s TV series Storybook.

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Author Marcus Zusak captures something of the love we have for our pets in his latest book and memoir, Three Wild Dogs and the Truth. Dogs have played a part in the Sydney-based author’s writing life for a long time, invariably sitting with him as he writes, but this is the first time they are front and centre in one of his books. “A dying dog is precious,” Zusak writes in the book. “Forget diamonds, pearls and any other worldly treasures. Give me fur and stink and pleading eyes, and the sad warm dog in your arms. You can’t know how much you loved them, I think, ’til you call for the executioner, or you get the results from the blood tests, and just stand in the shower and cry.”

He muses about why the loss of a pet, particularly a cat or a dog, is so massive, and makes the point that when it comes to friends and family, many people know them, but our pets are ours and we know them in a very specific way. Your dogs know only you – their whole life has been you, he says.

Zusak makes the point that when your dog – or equally, your cat – dies, it’s a “training ground” for grieving human losses. “There’s a wilderness you are unlocking, but a compassion as well – and your own capacity for loyalty and love.”

Cats & Dogs is at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Fed Square, until July 20, 2025.

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