Alert the Pupperazzi — These Dogs Have Bow Wow Wow Power

New York’s Dog Days of Summer is smart, fun, and lovingly curated.

T he Manhattan branch of London dealer Timothy Taylor has a treat of a show in Dog Days of Summer, a group exhibition of more than 60 works of art by nearly as many artists, all on the subject of the dog. It’s a tail-wagging-good show on so many fronts. The art’s first rate. Some of the artists were new to me, which I always enjoy. There’s variety in scale, medium, breed, of course, pose, and demeanor. Canine swagger portraits, dogs and owners, or their humans, and dogs revel in that sacred state called doghood. Dog Days of Summer is very fun. But it’s also a study in how to arrange art with sensitivity and dash. It’s magic. Labracadabrador, if I might indulge.

Timothy Taylor Gallery’s calling card is art with bold, dazzling color, a lively, gestural surface, and more than a rudimentary awareness of art history. Alex Katz, Antonio Tàpies, Kiki Smith, and Eddie Martinez are a few of his star artists, each established and appealing to European and American tastes. He represents very good young artists, too.

He and his talented staff tapped heavy hitters as well as new artists to give their dog his day or, if dogless, and that’s sad, to channel the dog of their dreams. Dogs bring people together. William Wegman, the famous photographer of Weimaraners, is well represented and logical, but how often do we see work by Picasso, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Grandma Moses happily together in a theme show?

I think we all know from the start when an exhibition will both edify and please the eye. Taylor’s shop has just been redone. It’s airy and commodious. Three objects welcome us to Dog Days. Mango, painted by Hilary Precis, is a little dog but looks like an infanta. Lucy is a sculpture made from wood by Alex Da Corte. She holds a daisy and is goofy. Rockabye, by Grandma Moses, is from 1957. The dog is small, watching a baby in a crib, and confers antiquity in more ways than one. It’s one of the oldest objects in the show. The first literary dog, as far as I know, is Argos. Odysseus had been gone for so long and was so bedraggled after years of fighting the Trojans that only his old dog, Argos, recognized him instantly when he finally came home.

A beautifully, charmingly arranged Salon-style wall on the right side of the spacious gallery immediately snatches the eye, but I’m not impulsive. I stopped by a short wall perpendicular to it to look at Alex Katz’s Dog at Duck Trap, from 1974. Who knew Katz painted dogs? It’s Sunny, the Skye terrier and the Katz family dog. Dogs, we’re told, are ruled by their redoubtable sense of smell, but let’s not forget those tongues. For better or worse, they’ll at least lick anything. Sunny’s tongue is a big, flat, pink rectangle. They’re uproariously, indefatigably sensual creatures.

The Salon-style wall is effectively and cleverly hung to balance big and small things on the one hand, but we’re dealing with dogs, not North Korean troops on parade. The look of the wall is free and easy and suitable for happy dogs. There’s lots of color, reinforcing an upbeat mood. With so many artists, almost all still kicking and working, Dog Days is a good survey of contemporary art, too. That is not an inconsiderable pleasure.

Many are poised. Justin Liam O’Brien (b. 1991) paints his curvy figures in bold, flat color. His paintings look Art Deco, but he’s very good at tender moments. I loved his Hungry Borzoi from 2024. The tsars bred borzois, fast-moving hunters with wavy, silky coats and long, elegant snouts. O’Brien’s might be hungry, but he’s got a nose for how he looks. If he’s going to be the subject of a painting, he’s going to want to look suave. Sean Landers’s Yellow Lab, from 2022, is big — 39 by 33 inches — and stately, looking beyond us, sturdy, handsome, and aware. He holds his own, especially since he’s juxtaposed against Dana Schutz’s Woman and Dog, a bigger, wilder abstract etching from 2018.

This big wall is a triumph of good museum design. Curators have to be adept, spirited decorators, committed to clarity and harmony but not without panache. The last thing we want is a dogfight not over a rope toy but over discordant color, medium, or theme.

How does the sweeping walk in Dog Days work? Big things express core dog characteristics. The dog in Yellow Lab is watchful. Yes, fetching is fun, but dogs watch us for cues and guard us, even though some breeds are better than others. Allison Schulnik’s Marty, a German shepherd in profile, is a big hunk o’ canine, too. He’s another anchor. He’s at attention. He’s the exhibition’s Rin Tin Tin. He’s poised to pull damsels from burning buildings.

The Bidens surely recalled Harry Truman’s take on loyalty, Swamp-style. “If you want a friend in Washington,” he said, “get a dog.” The Bidens’ German shepherd, Commander, was exiled to Rehoboth months ago, having bitten Secret Service agents at least 25 times.

Did Commander give them rabies? Is this why so few agents were available the day Trump was shot? Enquiring minds want to know. In any event, Marty looks like a noble dog, one with a lush, infinitely pettable coat. He’s the kind of friend you’d want to keep a cackling, grasping vice president at bay.

So, dogs protect. If their loved ones are under siege, they’ll put their lives on the line. Heroics aside, though, they simply love being with their mommies, daddies, and other favorite people. I love Gordon Parks’s Woman and Dog, a large black-and-white photograph from 1943. Her dog is more curious than watchful and enjoys surveying the hood but enjoys companionship most of all.

Dog Days is like a puzzle with big and small pieces. The small things are often the most narrative but also enigmatic. This is good. We want to keep looking at them, so they play effectively with bigger things. We all know small dogs who, through ferocity or subtle psychology, rule the pack. So it can be with art. Paul-Sebastian Japaz is a wonderful young painter whose three paintings show snippets of everyday life with a dog. The scenes are cropped in off-the-wall ways. Over and over, he gets to ask, and I get to tell is a small scene — 3 by 11 inches — of a man viewed from his torso to the floor and his dog, with the dog’s head cropped. It’s an interior, brightly lit by a lamp. Dogs are willing to hear the same laments over and over. We humans are always enchanting and sparkling to them. They’re imbedded in our lives. Even when our dogs are at the periphery, they’re a presence.

And they’ll look us in the eye. At the center of the Salon-style wall is Alison Elizabeth Taylor’s A Cat Person’s Studio Dog, a big painting from 2024. We love looking back.

Conveying all of these themes isn’t easy, though Dog Days looks easy. I hate the default style most curators use today — lining art in a rigid row, each work evenly spaced in what’s meant to seem sleek and modern, though it looks like the rows of “Most Wanted” criminals that once decorated every post-office lobby. That is, it’s boring, and it has no elegance whatsoever. Each object is reduced to a design element. That leaves us with unhappy art.

I like to hang things in groups of three or four, some double hangs, easygoing and conversational, looking at aesthetics and themes to spark conversation among the works of art that we as viewers can discern, absorb, and share. I also like Salon style, which can be formal, tight, and floor-to-ceiling, proposing “abbondanza.” Dog Days is country-house Salon style. It’s packed, diverse, and rambling but comfortable. It loses nothing in coherence, though.

Da Corte’s Lucy introduces the theme of the goofy, supremely playful dog. In Armen Eloyen’s Green Grass 14, from 2023, a dog rolls around in the grass with so much abandon and vigor, the scene turns abstract. It’s a one-creature, high-energy, fast-moving riot. In Craig Kucia’s a machine for aging (dogs), from 2023, we see that loyalty runs both ways. Our dogs love us and care for us, and we care for them. Commander might be a bad dog, but his big problem is his bad owners. The rest of us care for our dogs to the end. Their only fault is that they die too soon.

In the rest of the exhibition, the art’s displayed in pairs or singly in nicely spaced walls. There are mama dogs nursing their puppies, dogs who, yes, look like their owners. Over and over, dogs are positively allegorical. Friends in the woods, by Karen Kilimnik, from 2010, is a group picture of half a dozen breeds. “Let’s just all get along,” these dogs seem to have said and decided, “Yes, let’s do it.” Dogs, we see, are not only man’s best friends. They’re entertainers, companions, mentors, and role models. And they’re usually better behaved than we humans. What a lovely exhibition, a five “Arf” joy.

Dog Days runs until August 23. The gallery’s in Tribeca and a few minutes’ walk from a subway stop. Commercial galleries are free and open to the public. This is always worth repeating. Often they do shows as good as — if not better than — museum shows. That’s certainly the case at Timothy Taylor.