Welcome to a page documenting the work of Larry the Cat artist!

In response to a book called Why Cats Paint (Busch and Silver, 1994) in which the authors set out wonderful and colourful photographs of cats painting with a whole tongue in cheek art history context. When I read it my immediate reaction was why can't you do this for real? So I did.

My cat Larry was the ideal candidate as he always interfered with whatever I was making as an artist. This included brushing himself on wet paint and scratching wood sculptures. So I set about making up games and tricks to allow him to make his own marks on various materials scented with catnip. This was a very time-consuming work with a lot of cleaning and massaging work to get off non-toxic paint. The mark-making was rapid.

The resulting work formed the basis of an exhibition called Moggy Marks which showed in Bristol and Bath in 2006-7. The idea became ‘the cat as artist’. The cat exhibited with other human artists with cat-themed art.

He came to the exhibition.

The internet video world was only just emerging at this point and the original video is lost on the internet (it did gain 20,000 + views on Creature Mag). And sadly, Larry died during COVID-19. I now live with two of his grandchildren (Bob-Marney and Mario). His work lives on. (Hal Camplin 2025)

And so the artwork is rare as much of it sold.