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    Cat Compendium: The Worlds of Louis Wain
    Cat Compendium: The Worlds of Louis Wain
    Cat Compendium: The Worlds of Louis Wain
    Ebook99 pages42 minutes

    Cat Compendium: The Worlds of Louis Wain

    By Peter Owen Publishers

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    An in-depth biographical study, rare essays by and about Wain, and 60 of his best-loved illustrations make this a must-have for fans of the cult cat artistWith a wealth of Wain's most famous drawings, as well as rare writings by and about the artist, this is an ideal book for both Wain fans and cat-lovers in general. Louis Wain drew cats: cats playing poker, boxing, playing cricket, and doing almost any human activity. His pictures are widely available today as decorative motifs and popular prints, but in his day, the man dubbed the "Hogarth of cat life" was a celebrity who sold thousands of drawings and paintings to an insatiable public. From humble beginnings, Wain became a hugely successful popular artist, creating the Louis Wain Annual series and the first ever animated cat character, later acknowledged as the inspiration for Mickey Mouse. But after he lost his fortune, he lost his mind. He ended up in a provincial asylum, sketching psychedelic cats that were more fiend-like than feline. When his fate was discovered in 1925, the Royal Family and the Prime Minister joined a national campaign to rescue Wain. The artist never entirely recovered his health, but he was eventually moved to a better home, where he continued to draw and paint almost until his death in 1939.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPeter Owen Publishers
    Release dateApr 7, 2016
    ISBN9780720618686
    Cat Compendium: The Worlds of Louis Wain

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      Cat Compendium - Peter Owen Publishers

      1896)

      THE WORLDS OF LOUIS WAIN

      In the spring of 1929, Bethlehem Royal Hospital in St George’s Field, Lambeth, was a mental institution regarded with a mixture of pity and fear by many Londoners. The tall, somewhat forbidding building was, in fact, still referred to by some locals as ‘Bedlam’, and local gossip would occasionally refer to the hospital’s past when curiosity-seekers went there to stare and make fun of the extraordinary antics of the lunatics locked in their cells.

      By the 1920s, however, the Bethlehem was acknowledged as the world’s oldest psychiatric hospital, and its history had been traced back as far as the thirteenth century. Originally located in Bishopsgate, where it had been a priory for the men and women of the Order of the Star of Bethlehem, it had, by the following century, become a hospital and in 1377 began treating ‘distracted’ patients.

      It was during the reign of Henry VIII that the institution became notorious for the inhumane and brutal way in which the inmates were treated and became known as Bedlam. In 1675, the hospital was moved to new premises in Moorfields, and soon after that the freak shows began. These appallingly insensitive ‘open days’ allowed the citizens of London, for the price of a penny, to enter the buildings and amuse themselves at the expenses of the hapless inmates.

      The hospital was immortalized in the public imagination in 1735 by the artist William Hogarth in a scene from A Rake’s Progress, in which the terrible fate of a merchant’s son whose debauched lifestyle had brought about his incarceration is depicted – reflecting contemporary medical opinion that madness was caused by moral weakness. Thankfully, a change in attitudes was soon forthcoming, inmates now being referred to as ‘patients’ and separate wards set up for the ‘curables’ and ‘incurables’.

      The scars of the past could not be entirely erased, however. The word bedlam was already in common usage for all lunatic asylums, as well as any place or scene of wild turmoil and confusion. The name ‘Tom O’Bedlam’ had similarly been coined to describe anyone who was discharged from the hospital and provided with a small tin plate so that he could legally beg on the streets of London.

      The nineteenth century saw the Bethlehem Royal Hospital move a third time, to Lambeth, where it would remain until 1930, before becoming what is now the home of the Imperial War Museum. These new premises proved a far cry from the horrors of the old Bedlam – although some of the misconceptions about the place still persisted – individual rooms being provided for patients along a series of galleries.

      In 1929, Room 7 on Gallery 2 was occupied by a quietly spoken man in old-fashioned clothes who gave the impression to staff and visitors alike of being more of an eccentric than a madman. Certainly his room was piled high with paper, books, newspapers, magazines and a host of other smaller items indicating that he was a hoarder, while his constant preoccupation with writing and drawing set him aside from most of the other patients.

      Matters came to a head that spring when the authorities finally insisted that Room 7 had to be cleaned. The patient stood silently by, watching without any obvious sign of annoyance as two staff members began to shift the piles of junk. He made no move either when some mice ran out from

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