CATS

A comprehensive retrospective of the 20th century's greatest feline photographer

One winter night in 1949 in New York, young marketing student and budding photographer Walter Chandoha found an abandoned kitten in the snow, covered it with his coat and took it home. Little did he know that he had just met the muse that would guide his life. Chandoha set about photographing her new feline friend, whom she named Loco, and liked the results so much that she began photographing the kittens at a city shelter. These images were the starting point of an extraordinary career that would span seven decades.

Long before the Internet and #catsoninstagram, Chandoha captivated the public with the furry protagonists in her photographs. From advertisements to greeting cards, puzzles to cat food packaging, his images were a blend of genuine affection for animals, impeccable professional ethics and great artistry. Chandoha's glamorous lighting technique, in which the cats' fur was perfectly defined, laid the foundation of the visual vocabulary of animal portraiture for generations and inspired masters such as Andy Warhol, who followed the example of Chandoha's enchanting portraits to illustrate his cat book.