Pockets Warhol, a painting monkey who raised money for charity, dies at Ontario sanctuary

Capuchin monkey Pockets Warhol (Facebook.com/pocketswarhol/)

A capuchin monkey with a penchant for abstract painting, who helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity with his artistic skills, has died.

Pockets Warhol gained international attention for his talent of painting colourful canvases, a skill that was discovered shortly after he arrived at Storybook Farm Primate Sanctuary in Sunderland, Ont., in 2009.

He had originally come from B.C., where his previous owner had kept him as a pet. When she couldn’t handle the responsibility of Pockets, she contacted world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall, who recommended the sanctuary.

Executive director Daina Liepa said a volunteer added Warhol to Pockets’ name, thanks to his tuft of white hair. He quickly grew into his moniker after the same volunteer, Charmaine Quinn, presented him with paint and a canvas.

“She started the process to see if he was interested and he really took to it and did it on his terms when he was interested in doing it,” Liepa said, adding that Pockets would often get distracted. “We always had to make it a quiet zone for him, for the artist to work.”

His art attracted international attention, and the Sanctuary started auctioning off his paintings to help raise money for the charity, as well as other animal organizations. Liepa said that over the years, Pockets’ work helped raise $200,000.

Martin Gore, of rock band Depeche Mode, even purchased eight of Pockets’ paintings to use as art on his solo album, “The Third Chimpanzee.”

In 2015, Pockets created a yellow painting for a sick five-year-old boy in Britain who started a campaign that asked people to wear yellow to help cheer him up.

Liepa described Pockets as the most intelligent of the 23 monkeys at the sanctuary, who would always initiate play with volunteers.

“He loved to throw a ball and then we would have to retrieve it and throw it back to him and then he would throw it back,” she said. “He was just a very playful character.”

While capuchin monkeys have a lifespan of about 15 to 25 years in the wild, Pockets passed just before he could celebrate his 34^th birthday. Liepa said he had recently suffered a stroke, which compromised his movement, and had developed thyroid issues.

While his loss is felt profoundly at the sanctuary, which is home to another viral monkey, Darwin, known as the Ikea Monkey, Liepa said she’s grateful Pockets got to share his life — and talents — with so many people.

“He was such a character,” she said. “He really did have a wonderful, strong personality and he was immediately likeable and everybody just loved to be around him.“