CELEBRITY CAT

When all the city cats gather for Cats’ Visiting Night at the Art Gallery, they are dismayed to see that so few paintings include felines. So Felissima Cat takes paintbrush in paw and adds them to six masterpieces in the art museums of London, Madrid, New York and Paris. For example, the reason the Mona Lisa is smiling is because she’s holding a cat (now we know). The last spread reproduces the paintings and identifies the artists and the museums where they hang. As art appreciation, the device is original and the painting images accurate, but the illustrations of the cats are eerie. They are not cute, furry kitties, but appear somewhat menacing with sinister eyes that are more human than feline. The stylized illustrations in pencil, oil pastels and acrylics add unusual details and cleverly position the added cats into the artwork. Akin to Hooper’s Dogs’ Night, illustrated by Mark Burgess (2000), featuring four masterpieces in the National Gallery in London. (Picture book. 6-9)