Louis Wain

Louis Wain was an average man born in gloomy London on August 5th, 1860. He was an English artist best known for his drawings, which consistently featured anthropomorphized large-eyed cats and kittens.

Louis spent much of his childhood wandering around London. At the age of 18, Louis studied at the West London School of Art and eventually became a teacher there for a short period. At the age of 20, Wain was left to support his mother and sisters after his father's death.

In 1886, Wain's first drawing of anthropomorphized cats was published in the Christmas issue of the Illustrated London News, titled A Kitten's Christmas Party. 

Wain was a very well known 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. 

Around 1908, Wain's popularity began to decline. His mental instability 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, due to his way of speaking tangentially. His behavior and personality changed, and he began to suffer from delusions, with the onset of schizophrenia. When in the past 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 in Tooting. This hospital was relatively pleasant, with a garden and colony of cats, and he spent his final 15 years there in peace. While he became increasingly deluded, his erratic mood swings subsided, and he continued drawing pieces of art full of bright colors, sharp lines, and abstract patterns for pleasure. 

Here are a few examples of Louis Wain's art. As you can tell, they become more and more abstract as his illness progressed over time. You can view more of Wain's art here.

 

 

 

 

Interesting, no?