Louis Wain - Curious Cats Exhibition

Louis Wain exhibition comes to North Herts.

The current exhibition at the new North Herts. Museum in Hitchin is of paintings by the Victorian artists Louis Wain, borrowed from Bethlem Museum of the Mind in London.
Born in London in 1860, Louis Wain is best known for his psychedelic paintings of cats. He was a prolific artist, sometimes producing several hundred drawings a year. He illustrated around one hundred children's books, and his work was regularly reproduced on postcards.
Wain’s life was not easy. Aged twenty when his father died, he was responsible for his mother and five unmarried sisters. Although his illustrations were popular, financially he was naïve, and exploited by publishers. Sadly his wife Emily died of breast cancer three years after their marriage. During her illness Wain sketched their kitten Peter to amuse her, and soon began to specialise in cat pictures. At first the cats were on all fours, but Wain soon began to paint them standing upright, in human clothes. Wain’s cats play musical instruments, drink tea, play cards, fish, smoke, and enjoy a night at the opera.
After his mother and then his eldest sister died, Wain became increasingly unstable. In 1924 he was certified ‘insane’ and admitted to a pauper ward of Springfield Mental Hospital in South London. After a public campaign, he was transferred to Bethlem and finally to Napsbury, near St Albans, where he remained until his death in 1939. Throughout his life in hospital Wain continued to draw and paint. His work is evidence of how his skills as an artist remained intact despite his erratic mental health.

The exhibition is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10.30am – 4.30pm, until 29 September. Admission is free.

For more information visit https://www.north-herts.gov.uk/home/museums/north-hertfordshire-museum