Bosko the flying cat inspired Gary Baseman’s art and died in January 2024

Artist Gary Baseman said a black cat he adopted in 2021, nicknamed Bosko, reignited his creativity after a period of grief, before the cat was found dead in January 2024. Baseman told Sinéad Campbell he grew up with cats and that his love of black cats began after he moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1996 and found four feral black cats in his yard; two of those cats then had litters, leaving him with 13 black cats.

Baseman’s career took off in the early 2000s—he created merchandise, had a TV series called Teacher’s Pet, and said the show won five Emmys and a Bafta. His previous cat, Blackie, had been the inspiration behind much of his work until Blackie died in 2020 after 15 years together. He said he adopted Bosko from a fan who was fostering kittens and renamed the cat after the American chocolate syrup brand Bosco because of childhood nostalgia.

Baseman described Bosko as playful and athletic, able to leap up to 7ft and land on his shoulders; he said the cat’s antics featured in drawings—such as Bosko drinking a bottle of chocolate syrup—and in selfies and videos that gained a large online following. Baseman added that before Bosko his art focused on grief and remembrance, including the memory of his late parents who were Holocaust survivors, and that Bosko brought “a lust for life and the thrill of play” into his work.

Key Topics

Culture, Gary Baseman, Bosko, Los Angeles, New York, Teacher's Pet