Biography
EARLY YEARS
Louis William Wain was born on 5 August 1860 in Clerkenwell, London to Julie Felicie Boiteux (a church embroiderer) and William Matthew Wain (a textile trader.) ¹ His early years were troubled by a cleft lip, terrifying nightmares (or visions - it’s not perfectly clear,) and general ill health; as such, he did not attend school until age ten. For his first three years at Orchard Street Foundation School, he more often than not skipped classes, opting to explore the streets of London, adventure in the countryside, and attend lectures at the Royal Polytechnic Institution. He sought to understand nature like the native Americans and science like the chemists of the day, and was enthusiastically fascinated by just about everything but his studies. He then transferred to St Joseph's Academy in Kennington for three years, a Catholic school that he seemed more interested in actually attending, and finally moved to the West London School of Art, where he finally found his fit and took on an assistant master position.
The days of my childhood were terrifying in the extreme.
I seemed to live hundreds of years,
and to see thousands of mental pictures of extraordinary complexity,
pictures that were so vivid that I can recall many of them in the present day. [...]
As a boy, my fancy trembled in the balance between music, painting, authorship and chemistry.
I might in one sense say that I have had an art training,
for I never contemplated being anything but an artist in one form or another.”⁴
In addition to his prolific artwork, Wain also had lifelong interests in music (including allegedly composing an opera,) the physical sciences (having a number of unused patents to his name,) writing, and chemistry. In 1881 he first published his artwork in Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (although an editor’s labeling error nearly cost him the job,) and shortly later left his teaching role for full-time employment at the magazine. At this time his artwork consisted mostly of commissioned pet portraits and illustrations of animal shows he took long trips by train to attend. At age 24 he met Emily Richardson, and despite the fact that neither’s family supported their union, they married. Joined by a tuxedo kitten named Peter, they lived happily for four years, and in 1884, at Emily’s insistence, he published his first comical cat drawing, A Kittens’ Christmas Party, in the Illustrated London News. Just as success was drawing near, this ray of light in his life was cut short. Although their marriage was happy until the end and Peter provided much comfort in her waning days, Emily died of breast cancer in January 1887. Wain never remarried.¹
Guide
1: Beetles, C. (2011). Louis Wain’s Cats. WorthPress Ltd.
2: Dr David O'Flynn (February 7th, 2013), Louis Wain Exhibition, Bethlem Archive and Museum, SLaM [YouTube]
3: David Tibet & Paul Moody (October 18, 2018) - The Forgotten Artist Who Changed the Way We Look At Cats [Text]
4: A Celebrated Cat Artist. Mr. Louis Wain Chats with “Chums.” (1895, November). Chums, 204.