Louis Wain
From Freepedia
Louis Wain (1860-1939) was an English artist best known for his drawings, which consistently featured anthropomorphised large-eyed cats and kittens, and who suffered in later years from schizophrenia.
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Life and work
Louis William Wain was born on August 5, 1860 in Clerkenwell in London. He was the first of six children, and the only male child. None of his five sisters ever married. At the age of thirty, his youngest sister was certified as insane, and admitted to an asylum. The remaining sisters lived with their mother for the duration of their lifetimes, as did Louis for the majority of his life.
As a youth, Louis was often truant from school, and spent much of his childhood wandering around London. Following this period, Louis studied at the West London School of Art and eventually became a teacher there for a short period. At the age of twenty, his father died and Louis was left to support his mother and sisters. He maintained this responsibility throughout his working life.
Louis soon quit his teaching position to become a freelance artist. He specialized in drawing animals and country scenes, and worked for several journals including the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, and the Illustrated London News. Through the 1880s, Louis Wain's work included detailed illustrations of english country houses and estates, along with livestock he was commissioned to draw at agricultural shows. His work at this time includes a wide variety of animals, and he maintained his ability to draw creatures of all kinds throughout his lifetime. At one point, he hoped to make a living by drawing dog portraits.
At the age of twenty three, Wain married his sisters' governess Emily Richardson, who was ten years his senior, and moved with her to Hampstead in north London. Emily soon began to suffer from cancer, and died only three years after their marriage. It was during this period that Louis Wain discovered the subject that would alter his career. During her illness, Emily was comforted by Peter, their pet cat. To amuse her, Louis taught him tricks such as wearing spectacles and pretending to read, while he began to draw extensive sketches of the large black and white cat. He later wrote of Peter, "To him properly belongs the foundation of my career, the developments of my initial efforts, and the establishing of my work." Peter can be recognized in many of Wain's early published work.
In 1886, Wain's first drawing of anthropomorphised cats was published in the Christmas issue of the Illustrated London News, entitled 'A Kittens' Christmas Party.' The illustration depicted 150 cats, many of which resemble Peter, sending invitations, holding a ball, playing games, and making speeches over eleven panels. Still, the cats remain on all fours, unclothed, and without the variety of humanlike expression that would characterize Wain's work. In subsequent years, Wain's cats began to walk upright, smile broadly and use other exaggerated facial expressions, and wear sophisticated contemporary clothing. Wain's illustrations showed cats playing musical instruments, serving tea, playing cards, fishing, smoking, and enjoying a night at the opera.
Wain was a prolific artist over the next thirty years, sometimes producing as many as several hundred drawings a year. He illustrated about one hundred children's books, and his work appeared in papers, journals, and magazines, including the Louis Wain Annual, which ran from 1901 to 1915.
Wain's illustrations often parody human behavior, satirizing fads and fashions of the day. He wrote, "I take a sketch-book to a restaurant, or other public place, and draw the people in their different positions as cats, getting as near to their human characteristics as possible. This gives me doubly nature, and these studies I think [to be] my best humorous work."
Wain was involved with several animal charities, including the Governing Council of Our Dumb Friends League, the Society for the Protection of Cats, and the Anti-Vivisection Society. He was also active in the National Cat Club, acting as President and Chairman of the committee at times. He felt that he helped "to wipe out the contempt in which the cat has been held" in England.
Despite his popularity, Wain suffered financial difficulty throughout his life. He remained responsible for supporting his mother and sisters, and had little business sense. Wain was modest and easily exploited, ill-equipped for bargaining in the world of publishing. He often sold his drawings outright, retaining no rights over their reproduction. He was easily misled, and occasionally found himself duped by the promise of a new invention or other money-making scheme. After a trip to New York in 1907 in which his work was widely admired, he returned with even less money than before due to imprudent investment.
Mental illness
From this point, Wain's popularity began to decline. His mental instabilty also began around this time, and increased gradually over the years. He had always been considered quite charming but odd, and often had difficulty in distinguishing between fact and fantasy. Others frequently found him incomprehensible, and his mode of speaking tangential. Gradually, this eccentricity morphed into serious mental illness. His behavior and personality changed, and he began to suffer from delusions. Whereas he had been a mild-mannered and trusting man, he became hostile and suspicious, particularly towards his sisters. He claimed that the flickering of the cinema screen had robbed the electricity from their brains. He began wandering the streets at night, rearranging furniture within the house, and spent long periods locked in his room writing incoherently.
When his sisters could no longer cope with his erratic and occasionally violent behavior, he was finally committed in 1924 to a pauper ward of Springfield Mental Hospital. A year later, he was discovered here, and his circumstances were widely publicized, leading to appeals from such figures as H.G. Wells and the personal intervention of the Prime Minister. Wain was transferred to the Bethlem Royal Hospital, and again in 1930 to Napsbury Hospital near St Albans in Hertfordshire, north of London. This hospital was relatively pleasant, with a garden and colony of cats, and he spent his final fifteen years here quite peacefully. Though he became increasingly deluded, his former gentle personality returned to him, and he continued drawing for pleasure. His work from this period is marked by bright colors, flowers, and intricate and abstract patterns, though his primary subject remained the same.
A series of four of his paintings is commonly used as an example in psychology textbooks to, putatively, show the change in his style as his psychological condition deteriorated with time. However, the works of art were not in actuality created in the order they are usually presented.
H.G. Wells said of him, "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."
References
- The Cats of Louis Wain, Patricia Allderidge, Bibliotheque de l'Image, 2000, ISBN 2-909808-91-2
