Wain's World
These three cats were drawn by the same person, Mr. Louis William Wain. He might be the most successful postcard illustrator in the world and his story is as strange as his sujet: Anthropomorphised Cats.
He was born 1860 and had five little sisters, who never left home and never married. He studied art in London, became a teacher and married his sisters’ governess Emily Richardson, who was ten years older than him.
Emily soon developed a cancer which would kill her three years later. During her suffering Lois began to make sketches of her cat, Peter and published his first drawing the year she died.
Readers flooded the Illustrated London News, asking for more works like the published “A Kitten’s Christmas Party”.
He decided to never draw something else than cats in a time – Victorian England – when the interest for cats began slowly to develop. (The first cat show was held at London’s Crystal Palace in 1871)
The “Wain Cat” was already a commonly used term when first signs of a mental disorder started to show. Simultaneously the interest in fancy cats began to diminish and came to a complete halt when the senseless slaughter we now know as WW I had begun.
His personality changed – the mild-mannered man who supplied his sisters with everything they needed, became hostile and aggressive. When his family couldn’t bear his strange behaviour anymore, he was finally diagnosed as “mentally ill” and locked in the pauper wing of an asylum.
Even there he continued to draw cats and after a year he was recognized and the sad story was widely publicized. H.G. Wells, Princess Anne, the prime minister and other influential people intervened and Louis was transferred to the Bethlehem Royal Hospital and properly treated. He never was completely cured but learned to life with the symptoms of his schizophrenia. Louis William Wain continued to draw cats until he died in 1939.
His work shows the development of the impairments in his perception of reality and is nowadays used in psychology textbooks.
The web is full with his creations, have a look: Catland, Henry Boxer Gallery, Chris Beetels Gallery, the Louis Wain Kitten Book, Waincats and Louis Wain@tribe.
Filed under: 
