The connection between mental illness and creativity has also been confirmed by large-scale population studies, showing that people in the creative profession are more likely to be treated for a mental illness. Louis realized our imagination on cats into anthropomorphic images. Hi, welcome to my blog. There is dispute as to whether the commonly shown progression of his artwork actually mirrors the progression of his schizophrenic symptoms, but regardless, there is no question as to whether or not the drawings became increasingly strange. From an early age, the artist suffered from both physical and mental trauma that included recurring nightmares and “visions of extraordinary complexity,” according to Wain himself. Thank you. I think this person was just making a statement about that… It's true, LSD does change a man. He was transferred to Napsbury Hospital in 1930 that had a more pleasant atmosphere, including a garden in which tons of cats lived! Relatively pleasant with a garden and colony of cats, he spent his final 15 years at this hospital.
The British artist Louis Wain was a highly successful illustrator whose reputation was made on his singular and gently humorous pictures of cats. ^That's a seriously lame, uneducated comment. The cats returned to smiles, although it appeared more of a strange contentment and mischief than pure happiness, until emotion left the cat’s faces altogether, looking more emotionally blunted with no affect whatsoever. Louis Wain, Kitten Book (David Brass Rare Books), Louis Wain, Kitten Book, white cat and frog playing a violin (David Brass Rare Books). You have inspired me to seek an artist to be a part of our community advisory board of the Comprehensive Mental Health Center at the medical college. And his cats appeared in papers, journals, and magazines. At the age of 23, Louis married Emily Richardson, who was ten years his senior, which was taken quite scandalous at the time. Then he joined the staff at The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News in 1882, began to draw cats in 1883. Below are some examples of Wain’s art. All of the remaining children lived at home with their mother for the length of their adult lives.


Artist and Cat Index: Find Your Favorite Artist with Cat. His cats are often humorous, but there’s a sad story why Louis began drawing cats. You experience life completely differently. anyone who ever grasped the inner shadow will instantly recognise the terrors behind those paintings.for others, they might appear quite beautiful.

Boxer, who has spoken with the families of Wain’s nurses at Napsbury Hospital, estimates that Wain’s fractal felines stem from 1935 to his death in 1939.

The illustration depicted 150 cats, many of them which resembled Peter, doing things such as sending invitations, holding a ball, playing games, and making speeches, spread over eleven panels. : Louis Wain’s Cats by Chris Beetles (Author)This new biography will show many images for the first time ever, amongst 300 plates of richness and variety, all of which are originated faithfully from the original artwork.

He was transferred to the Napsbury Hospital in St Albans in 1930 and this is when his artistic style took on a dramatic transformation. He was the first of six children, and the only male child. Louis Wain was one of the most popular commercial illustrators in the history of England. It’s nice to see stories where people are still able to create and do things even when the illness is tormenting them. He became increasingly deluded but carried on painting cats. When he began to grow violent toward his sisters, Wain was admitted to the pauper ward of Springfield Hospital in Tooting, South London, in 1924. The dazzlingly colorful, fractal, and powerfully enigmatic kaleidoscopic cats for which Wain is revered today were produced during his period of hospitalization. This is a interesting read about others who have schizophrenia and are/were artists. Courtesy of Chris Beetles Ltd. Louis Wain, Cat with Cat Necklace. In actuality, Wain produced his so-called psychedelic cats in tandem with the less abstracted felines. From funny, mischievous to mysterious, a cat can play any roles on his paintings as a great actor. For example, there is evidence that the common link between schizophrenics and creative people is having fewer dopamine receptors. Louis Wain. I implore you to get your facts straight. Louis Wain (5 August 1860 – 4 July 1939) was an English artist best known for his drawings, which consistently featured anthropomorphised large-eyed cats and kittens. Please read a bit about Louis Wain’s life first, and then continue to the bottom to see the progression of his artwork from the early periods and then forward. His success was widespread, but financially he remained burdened by his family. “We marveled at how Wain could produce these images without taking any sort of substances.”, Gesturing toward a series of concurrent watercolor landscapes, lucid with detail and totally devoid of felines, Boxer says Wain had reached a sort of psychic euphoria at the end of his lifetime—and that these detailed landscapes, along with the trippy cats, indicate that Wain had achieved a permanent state of higher consciousness resembling what the rest of us see at the peak of LSD. At the first, he specialized in drawing animals and country scenes and achieved the substantial success, which made his drawings immensely popular. His father was a textile trader and embroiderer, his mother was French. His success found his artwork in magazines, children’s books, newspapers, and on postcards. “Looking into the cats’ eyes, they become more manic from 1914 onwards.”. Courtesy of Chris Beetles Ltd. Louis Wain, Portrait of a Literary Orange Cat. Wells and Ramsay MacDonald, London’s prime minister at the time, succeeded in having Wain transferred—first to Bethlem Royal Hospital, and later in 1930 to Napsbury Hospital near St. Albans. Louis Wain (born August 5, 1860; died July 4, 1939) was an English artist best known for his drawings, which consistently featured anthropomorphised large-eyed cats and kittens. I’ve also been in love with art, especially hand drawing with pencil. While he may have been dealing with the discomfort and general annoyance of schizophrenia, I believe that he made the absolute best of it and continued to thrive and bring unabated creativity to his art, which I would like to share with you here. Marlon Brando: “The Wild One” Lived in His “Cat’s House”, Smells Cats Hate: Natural Cat Repellent You Can Use. Drawing cats through years should have been his way of love for Emily and by keeping drawing them, Peter might have been alive in his soul.

I, too, suffer from schizophrenia. It was Louis Wain. A public appeal involving the popular science fiction writer H.G. This theory found its origin in 1953 but there is still no definitive evidence either way. Despite his popularity, Louis always was financially in a poor state.

The editor of Punch even referred to him as the “Hogarth of Cat Life.”, In Wain’s weird world, cats wine and dine, grin and wink, dress up and boogie down—“at once embodying all that was fun and stylish in Edwardian times,” suggests Chris Beetles, a London-based art dealer and leading Wain authority. Courtesy of Chris Beetles Ltd. Louis Wain, Decorative Cat. Always I enjoy a great artistic talent. A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry also found a strong association between the artistic profession and schizophrenia.

But we must not presume these works are caused by or evidence of Wain’s psychological suffering, argues Beetles, who practiced medicine before retiring to become a collector and dealer of British art.