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Louis Wain's Cats
The first comprehensive exhibition of Wain’s work was held at the Victoria and Albert museum in London in 1972 and since then Louis Wain has steadily become more fashionable, and collected worldwide.
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.
Louis Wain who was born in 1860, was a shy and eccentric personality who became famous by the age of 40 and at his most productive, painted 600 cat pictures a year, and published his celebrated 'Louis Wain Annuals' between 1901 and 1914. His financial difficulties, post war, contributed to a rapid decline into schizophrenia as Wain became isolated and unmanageable.
In 1924 he was certified insane and admitted to Springfield hospital. Briefly forgotten he was discovered in this pauper’s asylum a year later and following an appeal involving many writers and artists, and the intervention of the Prime Minister himself, he was transferred to the new Napsbury hospital, in the Hertfordshire countryside. In these pleasant surroundings he lived on until 1935, painting ceaselessly and recreating a new and more coluorful cat world.
His later unpublished work is now well known to us as it reveals his schizophrenic illness: highly coloured cats become more frenzied and the pictures are often crammed with paranoid delusional writing: cats are angry and more frenetic and often in the background are the curious buildings of the mental asylums. But at times these pictures reveal a beautiful tranquillity with animals living in harmony in bright Utopian landscapes.
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.
Louis Wain who was born in 1860, was a shy and eccentric personality who became famous by the age of 40 and at his most productive, painted 600 cat pictures a year, and published his celebrated 'Louis Wain Annuals' between 1901 and 1914. His financial difficulties, post war, contributed to a rapid decline into schizophrenia as Wain became isolated and unmanageable.
In 1924 he was certified insane and admitted to Springfield hospital. Briefly forgotten he was discovered in this pauper’s asylum a year later and following an appeal involving many writers and artists, and the intervention of the Prime Minister himself, he was transferred to the new Napsbury hospital, in the Hertfordshire countryside. In these pleasant surroundings he lived on until 1935, painting ceaselessly and recreating a new and more coluorful cat world.
His later unpublished work is now well known to us as it reveals his schizophrenic illness: highly coloured cats become more frenzied and the pictures are often crammed with paranoid delusional writing: cats are angry and more frenetic and often in the background are the curious buildings of the mental asylums. But at times these pictures reveal a beautiful tranquillity with animals living in harmony in bright Utopian landscapes.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1983
13 people are currently reading
284 people want to read
About the author
Louis Wain
101 books20 followersLouis Wain was an English artist best known for his drawings, which consistently featured anthropomorphised large-eyed cats and kittens.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
November 16, 2021
Louis Wain was an intriguing man.
He drew cats, and lots of them. He suffered from mental illness and expressed his struggles within his work. He created incredible pieces that you've likely seen (or seen works inspired by)
This is honestly such a fascinating book, and is a must have for any cat lover. There are hundreds of artwork images within these pages. You can easily spend hours getting lost in the world of cats.
Thank you so much to Allen and Unwin for sending me a copy of this book.
He drew cats, and lots of them. He suffered from mental illness and expressed his struggles within his work. He created incredible pieces that you've likely seen (or seen works inspired by)
This is honestly such a fascinating book, and is a must have for any cat lover. There are hundreds of artwork images within these pages. You can easily spend hours getting lost in the world of cats.
Thank you so much to Allen and Unwin for sending me a copy of this book.
March 20, 2023
An absolutely enthralling collection of cats. There are two avenues of interest in this title, the other being the life of Louis Wain and the historicity of his work in the context of Victorian era, the other being the art, setup here for close examination. I haven't read any of the previous books on Louis Wain's art, but I found this to be very fresh, as it contains much of his work I've never seen elsewhere.
November 6, 2022
Not a single thing not to love about this book.
December 28, 2023
Such a wonderful book. I've been fascinated by Louis Wain and his cats since watching The Electrical Life of Louis Wain in 2021 and this book was on my radar for a while. It's a huge book that covers Wain's life, but mostly it's full of funny drawings and beautiful paintings - I could spend hours just looking at the cats being up to no good, playing sports, celebrating Christmas and more. The book is full of details and covers Wain's life from looking after his sisters, marrying Emily and losing her too soon, finding Peter the cat and being inspired by his antics, until his diagnosis as schizophrenic and being sectioned until his death. This is a fascinating and heart-breaking read. I couldn't sympathise with Louis Wain more and I'm so grateful for his art and for everything that he did for cats in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Long live Louis Wain's cats!
October 29, 2023
I briefly read about who Louis Wain was from a book (I believe it was this one) called "LSD: Doorway to the Numinous: The Groundbreaking Psychedelic Research into Realms of the Human Unconscious" by Stanislav Grof. I was interested to learn more about him as he was an artist who specialized in drawing cats. As a cat parent and lover of cats, I had to read this book! Grof referenced him because Wain's art began to look more like the images people typically see while on psychedelics after he became schizophrenic. I wanted to see for myself how this progression would look. I was more interested in the pictures and not so much the text found so I can't speak to that. I am curious about how much art he made prior to his illness. There weren't too many photos from Wain after his illness so I can't really say I agree with Grof, although I'm sure having a mental illness does affect your creative abilities to some degree.
There were 4 drawings that I liked which can be viewed in the imgur link below. Some of the physical mannerisms of the cats really were quite delightful to see such as one where Wain draws them from behind and they are holding their hands behind them. This can be seen on the image on page 43. There is also a cat with his hands folded and one on top of the other (left of the piano). My grandfather used to sit like that when he was alive so the way he captures these human mannerisms and adopts them to cats is just delightful.
Page 104 has a cat (third from right) who looks like like "I'm not sure this cat knows what he's doing."
Album link: https://imgur.com/a/m0XsuAq
There were 4 drawings that I liked which can be viewed in the imgur link below. Some of the physical mannerisms of the cats really were quite delightful to see such as one where Wain draws them from behind and they are holding their hands behind them. This can be seen on the image on page 43. There is also a cat with his hands folded and one on top of the other (left of the piano). My grandfather used to sit like that when he was alive so the way he captures these human mannerisms and adopts them to cats is just delightful.
Page 104 has a cat (third from right) who looks like like "I'm not sure this cat knows what he's doing."
Album link: https://imgur.com/a/m0XsuAq
January 3, 2025
I'd never heard of Louis Wain before but I love cats so I decided to pick up this book. I love the way he portrays cats in his paintings - they are so expressive and it's a joy to behold. The history of Louis' life is somewhat tragic and contrasts with the happiness portrayed in his paintings. I can see why he has a decent following in the art world and I would love to see some of his paintings in person
December 28, 2021
One of the best Christmas present I have received in years! A delightful journey through the art of Louis Wain and his cats, covering a whole life made of drawings and much more.
Now I can't wait to see the movie version about to be released, with Benedict Cumberbatch playing the artist (and in here present with a foreword).
Now I can't wait to see the movie version about to be released, with Benedict Cumberbatch playing the artist (and in here present with a foreword).
June 30, 2023
The movie convinced me to buy this for my roommate. I don't think she has gotten to it, but I read the introduction and looked at the pictures. Great movie, and I don't think my roomy has seen it yet either. Her cat loves her, and I like her a lot, but she may be in danger of being demoted in the Cat Lovers Hall of Fame.
Read
October 1, 2024I just found out I really don’t like bipedal felines; or even anthropomorphism in general (coz human’s too narrow mined). The art struck me as caricature + children’s book illustration + Japanese woodblock print (all of which I don’t usually enjoy).
Only looked at the pictures.
Read with diffused rainy afternoon lighting.
Only looked at the pictures.
Read with diffused rainy afternoon lighting.
August 20, 2024
The story is captivating but not as compelling as the depiction of the movie. Part of the reason could be it focuses on the illustration of the drawing, his genius part, as opposed to his inner struggle as the movie did.
It's still an easy reading.
It's still an easy reading.
September 7, 2019
Found the paintings creepy. Good short, basic biography after the pictures.
Want to read
July 4, 2022Grandpa
December 28, 2022
A fantastic biography and collection of Louis Wains cat artwork. Highly recommend
April 1, 2024
A lovely selection of essays on an interesting artist. It was a pleasure to flick through pages of wonderful artwork.
September 10, 2025
I liked the pictures and the story of this talented man. He was schizophrenic and died at an early age, (48), in a hospital for the insane.
February 19, 2015
Louis Wain would have been important if he had only been the greatest master ever of cute and anthropomorphic felinity, which, around the turn of the 20th Century, he was. His images of kitties were cranked out and reproduced in vast numbers, creating an inexhaustible reservoir of catty charm.
Wain would have been important if he were only known for the increasingly bizarre and (before the term was coined) psychedelic cat images he produced toward the end of his life while institutionalized as a schizophrenic.
And Wain would have been fascinating if only for the ceramic cats he designed in the teens of the 20th Century, including the Lucky Futurist Cat and other modernist triumphs from this master of popular illustration.
That Wain’s art was a rare combination of the charming, the brilliant and the bizarre this volume illustrates very well, even if it’s a little light on some of the hard facts that would provide a clearer picture of how Wain’s art evolved and why.
I first became aware of Wain in grade school while reading the Time/Life book on The Mind, which used three of his later, hallucinatory cat pictures to illustrate progressive psychosis. Chris Beetles, author of Louis Wain’s Cats, implies that this traditional diagnostic interpretation of the late work is too pat. It’s indeed possible that Wain's images became more vibrant and more abstract because he was no longer producing them for the public, and he had the time to let his imagination run wild — not necessarily because he was getting sicker. It would be really interesting to grasp the circumstances of the later work, but Beetles provides pretty scant detail, and not enough dates to demonstrate a progression in the work, or a lack thereof.
Whatever the genesis of the wild imagery, however, it fixed in my mind from an early date that there might be something really cool in the art of the insane, making me highly receptive to Jean Dubuffet’s notion of art brut when I came across it many years later.
All in all, Louis Wain is an artist who bears investigating, and this is a good place to start, along with Rodney Dale’s earlier book, Louis Wain: The Man who drew Cats. Dale also contributes a chapter to Beetles’ volume.
Wain would have been important if he were only known for the increasingly bizarre and (before the term was coined) psychedelic cat images he produced toward the end of his life while institutionalized as a schizophrenic.
And Wain would have been fascinating if only for the ceramic cats he designed in the teens of the 20th Century, including the Lucky Futurist Cat and other modernist triumphs from this master of popular illustration.
That Wain’s art was a rare combination of the charming, the brilliant and the bizarre this volume illustrates very well, even if it’s a little light on some of the hard facts that would provide a clearer picture of how Wain’s art evolved and why.
I first became aware of Wain in grade school while reading the Time/Life book on The Mind, which used three of his later, hallucinatory cat pictures to illustrate progressive psychosis. Chris Beetles, author of Louis Wain’s Cats, implies that this traditional diagnostic interpretation of the late work is too pat. It’s indeed possible that Wain's images became more vibrant and more abstract because he was no longer producing them for the public, and he had the time to let his imagination run wild — not necessarily because he was getting sicker. It would be really interesting to grasp the circumstances of the later work, but Beetles provides pretty scant detail, and not enough dates to demonstrate a progression in the work, or a lack thereof.
Whatever the genesis of the wild imagery, however, it fixed in my mind from an early date that there might be something really cool in the art of the insane, making me highly receptive to Jean Dubuffet’s notion of art brut when I came across it many years later.
All in all, Louis Wain is an artist who bears investigating, and this is a good place to start, along with Rodney Dale’s earlier book, Louis Wain: The Man who drew Cats. Dale also contributes a chapter to Beetles’ volume.
August 27, 2022
Honestly, I only read this because it had cats and Benedict Cumberbatch. But it was worth it.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews