country artists figurines cats dreamy days

“The question of whether Wain helped to popularize the cat as a pet is also a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg problem,” historian Stephanie Howard-Smith told The Post.

“The Victorians were particularly keen on dogs, as they seemed to embody their values of loyalty, fidelity and trust,” said Jane Hamlett, professor at Royal Holloway, University of London. Whereas cats - often associated with witches and spinsters - “were seen as sly and sometimes viewed with suspicion.” The Victorians loved dogs, but Wain’s paintings helped advance the cause of cats as pets. It caused a sensation: Soon, Wain was dashing off cat drawings for books, newspapers, magazines, postcards and more. Richardson urged Wain to sell his charming cat drawings, and in 1886, the Illustrated London News commissioned a kitten-themed spread for its Christmas edition. “His was the genius which gilded many a sorrowful hour and lightened many a burden.” “Peter was her constant companion,” Wain wrote in his diary. Shortly after, Richardson was diagnosed with breast cancer, and Wain drew pictures of her kitten, Peter, to cheer her up. When he was 23, he fell in love with his sisters’ governess, the feline-loving Emily Marie Richardson, and the two wed (courting much scandal, due to the bride’s inferior social standing) in 1884. The real Louis Wain has been described as a “tragic hero.” Corbis via Getty ImagesĪ skilled draftsman - he sketched rapidly with a pencil in each hand - he began selling his nature and animal sketches to London newspapers. When his father died in 1880, the 20-year-old Wain suddenly had to provide for his mother and five younger sisters. “He was somebody who tried his best to live the life that he wanted to live and to create the work he wanted to create, and it took a real toll on him,” Luck said.īorn in 1860, Wain, shy and sensitive, was the eldest child of an English textile-trader father and French mother. 4, “Animal Therapy: The Cats of Louis Wain.” The museum has a new exhibition of his work opening Dec. “He was a kind of tragic hero in some ways,” David Luck, an archivist at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, located in England’s Bethlem Royal Hospital, where Wain stayed for a time, told The Post.

By the mid-20th century, he was nearly all but forgotten. British cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.” Louis Wain made a name for himself with whimsical drawings of cats.ĭespite his wild popularity, Wain died in 1939 at the age of 79 nearly penniless and in a psychiatric hospital. “He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. “He made the cat his own,” the science-fiction writer H.G.

Now, a new movie, “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch, in select theaters now and streaming on Amazon Prime Video Friday, tells his story. They appeared in books, magazines, newspapers and postcards all over Victorian England. His cute kittens and cigar-chomping tabbies - sometimes done in black ink, sometimes in electric neons - threw snowballs at one another, played poker and drank brandy, and made all sorts of mischief. One hundred years ago, Louis Wain transformed the humble feline from vermin-catching critter to beloved beast with his whimsical drawings of anthropomorphized cats. You’re in the top 1% if you can find the two hidden cats in this image The real reason why cats look so judgmental Here’s why your cat is terrified of cucumbers

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Country artists figurines cats dreamy days