The painter who made the British cat-lovers: Who is Louis Wain?

The death of his wife, who succumbed to cancer, was the trigger for a deep depression in his life.

When the crushing effects of the First World War and poverty were added to the deep void arising from the absence of his wife, his mental health gradually deteriorated.

At the age of 57, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, which affects not only a person's way of thinking, but also his behavior, and due to his aggressive behavior, he spent the last 15 years of his life in psychiatric institutions.

Louis William Wain (5 August 1860 – 4 July 1939) was an English artist best known for his drawings of anthropomorphised cats and kittens.

Of course, it wasn't just his personality that was affected by this malady. Wain's artworks also became less and less similar in style to his early artworks. The cute cats, which were previously smiling, cheerful, and had human-like features, became more geometric and more colorful. He created most of these psychedelic kitten paintings in Napsbury Hospital, where the artist was admitted due to his illness and breathed his last breath there.

At the age of 57, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, which affects not only a person's way of thinking, but also his behavior, and due to his aggressive behavior, he spent the last 15 years of his life in psychiatric institutions.

Of course, it wasn't just his personality that was affected by this malady. Wain's artworks also became less and less similar in style to his early artworks. The cute cats, which were previously smiling, cheerful, and had human-like features, became more geometric and more colorful. He created most of these psychedelic kitten paintings in Napsbury Hospital, where the artist was admitted due to his illness and breathed his last breath there.

When Louis Wain is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind is cats.

After his wife dies, he goes into a period of severe depression, and symptoms of schizophrenia appear. replaced by cheerful, having fun cats; unhappy, depressed cats are now taken. When you examine the pictures before and after schizophrenia, you will immediately notice the stark differences. Prime Minister Ramsey Macdonald opened a fund to improve Wain's conditions and support him in his artistic life and livelihood. After this period, his work became even more perfect.

Science fiction writer Herbert George Wells said the following about the painter:

"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." The same year Ramsay MacDonald wrote: "Louis Wain was on all our walls some 15 to 20 years ago. Probably no artist has given a greater number of young people pleasure than he has".

About the relationship between schizophrenia and art

It is claimed that Wain suffered from schizophrenia. In 1924, when his sisters could no longer cope with his erratic, sometimes violent behavior, he was institutionalized. But it is thought that his disease did not begin in 1924, but existed in a mild form for many years and turned into a severe form in response to the death of his sister Caroline. His schizophrenia probably had little impact on his art. During the acute attacks of the disease he did not or could not paint at all, but when he became more stable he tended to paint. After a while in the hospital, the disease took a mild form again and he resumed his artwork. He suffered a cerebrovascular accident in 1936 and as a result was likely showing many features of vascular dementia by 1939, the year of his death.

Psychiatrists thought that some of Louis Wain's paintings revealed a visual representation of the progression of his schizophrenia. However, this idea is open to criticism as there is no evidence of when any of these drawings were actually made.

Wain's life was also adapted to the cinema with the movie The Electrical Life of Louis Wain.