Louis Wain was a British painter and illustrator. He is recognized for his paintings depicting anthropomorphized cats and kittens. At the end of his life, the artist may had problems with mental health, probably, schizophrenia, which were reflected on some of his works in the opinion of many psychoanalysts.
Background
Louis Wain was born on August 5, 1860 in London, United Kingdom. He was the first child of six, the only boy in the family of William Mathew Wain, who worked as a textile trader and embroiderer, and Julie Felicie Boiteux. One of Louis’s five sisters none of which were never married was considered mentally ill and placed into an insane asylum.
Louis was born with a cleft lip and had some mental issues from his childhood, in particular, nightmares and “visions of extraordinary complexity,” in his own words. According to the doctors’ prescriptions, he had not attended school till the age of ten. So, the boy had irregular private schooling that allowed him to spent a lot of time walking around London. In fact, the painter lived with his mother for the significant part of his life.
Education
At the age of seventeen, Louis tried the musical activity, but finally had a decision to become an artist. He studied at the West London School of Art.
Career
Louis Wain started his career as a teacher at the West London School of Art where he had worked till the 1880 when his father died and he had to support the family. At this time, Wain became a freelance artist. The first painting he sold at the age of twenty-one was a drawing of bullfinches.
In fact, among Wain’s early drawings which he created for different journals firstly for Sporting and Dramatic News were animals and country scenes. The artist also contributed his illustrations to the Illustrated London News to which the artist sold his first painting of cat in 1884.
Two years later, the periodical published in its Christmas issue the series of similar drawings called "A Kittens' Christmas Party". The series contained about hundred fifty works showing cats which did typical things people do. The same year, the artist had a commission from Macmillan publishing company to illustrate the children’s book Madame Tabby's Establishment by Caroline Hughes.
Later, under the name of George Henri Thompson, Wain created the illustrations for children’s books by Clifton Bingham. Since then, his cat drawings and illustrations were used in various magazines, children’s books, newspapers, and on postcards. By the 1900s, the painter became very popular among the country.
On some period of his career, Wain worked with ceramics and made a collection of spectacular futurist cats.
Despite his artistic career, Louis Wain was involved in many social activities related with animals in general and with cats in particular. So, he was invited to judge cat competitions, to took part at the animal charities, including the Governing Council of Our Dumb Friends League, the Society for the Protection of Cats, and the Anti-Vivisection Society. In 1898 and 1911 he presided the National Cat Club.
Wain never used his popularity for his own ends, that is why his talent was often exploited. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the artist had some problems to find markets for his creations and by the 1920’s he almost had no money for living. The mental state of the painter accompanied by regular depressions engraved after his mother’s death, and in 1924, Wain was sent to the London’s Springfield Mental Hospital.
A year later, due to the help of the writer Herbert George Wells and the intervention of the Prime Minister, Louis Wain was transferred to the Bethlem Royal Hospital in Southwark, and in 1930 to Napsbury Hospital near St Albans in Hertfordshire, north of London. The institution had a colony of cats, and there the artist spent the last fifteen years of his life.
While in the hospital, Wain continued to paint. The creations of this period were full of bright colors, flowers, abstract patterns, although, a cat remained its main subject.
Achievements
Louis Wain was a prolific artist of incredible talent who despite his mental problems contributed as an illustrator to many periodicals as well as for about two hundred children’s books creating his own world of cats which became the world of everyone.
During his career, the artist had more than sixteen hugely popular Christmas annuals and a great number of posters which could be founded almost in every home at the beginning of the twentieth-century. While alive, his artworks became subjects of satirical illustrations by John Tenniel.
Daddy Can You Let Me Pass on Your Love to Mother from Me
The Cat’s Excursion
Blue Tufted Bird and Bearded Irises
The Banged Door
Untitled
Catastrophies are ‘Off’. In 1902 Take Care How You Step into The New Year
The Door of the Annual
Old Song ‘The Cat Came Back’
The Debutante Her First Season
Cats’ Bridge Club
The Green
A Free Lecture in Catville. The Learned Professor Was Expounding His Theories to an Attentive Audience
Two Jugs of Milk
Blue Cat
Ginger Flower Cat
The Junior Council M’Lud, I Will Not Further Harrow Your Feelings
I Wonder
The Approach
He – I went to the zoo yesterday She – My word! I went there too looking for you which cage were you in
One Eye on You
Everything Happens at Once!
The Beautiful Land
Flowers for You
Sketches of Burmese Cats
Untitled
The Barrister
Untitled
Hurry up with that dinner please or the mice joint will run away
K. Little Kathleen, out with her kite, it broke from the string, and flew out of sight
In the Vineyard
Untitled
Cat Wearing a Bow
Sicilian
Bemused Cat
Two Naughty Crows
The Skipping Mascot
The Putt
Untitled
A Good Read
A Game of Snooker
Untitled
Untitled
A Mad Rush
The Drive
The Approach
The Contented Mascot
After the football match you are not lucky, but a better time is coming
And then, the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eye-brow
The Punch and Judy Show
Ginger Cat in Decoration
When suddenly the lecture platform became too hot to hold him
In the Wars
Study of a Ginger Cat
Turandot
Happy Flower Cat
Untitled
Been Through the Wars
Laughing Cats
Untitled
Striped Cats
Law in Action
The Putt
The Confidence Trick Baffled Sharp Cat
Dark-Eyed Cat
The Drive
Three Cats
Happy Cat
Pansies and Tabby
sculpture
Futurist Cat
Views
Quotations:
"Intelligence in the cat is underrated."
"A mouse in the paws is worth two in the pantry."
"To him [his pet cat Peter], properly, belongs the foundation of my career, the developments of my initial efforts, and the establishing of my work."
Personality
Louis Wain was a modest person who never used his popularity for his own ends, that is why his talent was often exploited.
Quotes from others about the person
"He has made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves." Herbert George Wells, writer
Connections
Louis Wain married Emily Richardson, who looked after his sisters and had been his student for ten years, in 1883. After the marriage, the couple lived in north London area Hampstead.
Soon, Emily was diagnosed a breast cancer and died three years after their wedding.
