Kaleidoscope Cats II by Louis Wain.
A major exhibition at Bethlem Museum of the Mind offers a life affirming look at the world of Louis Wain
Thanks in part to a new Benedict Cumberbatch film, which opens on New Years Day 2022, the life and art of Louis Wain is about to become better known – beyond the world of cat lovers and connoisseurs of outsider and psychedelic art.
Yet 100 years ago, Louis Wain (1860-1939) was a household name. His anthropomorphic cats were instantly recognisable and appeared constantly in books, magazines, postcards and in his popular self-published annuals.
The latter he printed across two decades from 1901 to 1915, each 100 pages long and containing a variety of images and articles, and they remain as the best examples of Wain’s versatility as an illustrator – especially of anthropomorphic animals.
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These and other examples of the world of Louis Wain can be seen in this wide ranging and fascinating exhibition. Given Bethlem’s genuinely unique, historic link to the man, it’s an opportunity to enjoy a selection of his work that has never been shown together before, and likely will not come together again.
But his story is an ill-fated one – of talent, fortitude and a struggle with mental illness that eventually saw him institutionalized as his family struggled to cope with his erratic behaviour.
Crawling Cat Louis Wain, Coloured pencils on paper c.1935
I Am Happy Because Everybody Loves Me, Louis Wain. c.1928
Louis Wain, Carol Singing Cats c.1930
Despite Wain’s popularity as an illustrator, he wasn’t a successful businessman, and often produced drawings without retaining their copyright. As a result, many of his pictures were widely used in merchandising, adding to his popularity but not to his own wealth via royalties.
As his cat drawings grew in fame he became an advocate for the cat in Britain, despite knowing little about them. He wrote widely on his cat theories – including his belief that they gave off electricity, were magnetic, and hated orange peel.
In 1898 he even became President of the National Cat Club and also designed the Club’s logo (featuring in the medal displayed in the exhibition), which is still used today. Wain is sometimes credited as popularizing the cat as a pet in the Victorian and Edwardian England.
Long considered eccentric by many, as Wain aged his mental health deteriorated and from 1910 he began to decline, although it has been suggested that his eccentricity masked this from his friends and family.
After resisting attempts by his sisters to care for him, he became violent towards them and was certified insane in 1924 and admitted to the pauper ward at Springfield Hospital in Tooting.
Wain was later ‘found’ there, and a public appeal which attracted the backing of people like H.G Wells and the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was launched to raise funds to move him to Bethlem (then located in St George’s Fields in Southwark) in 1925.
The hospital relocated to Monks Orchard in 1930, and Wain was moved to Napsbury Hospital near St Albans, in a comparatively new building that dated to 1905. Napsbury had been built along the ‘country estate’ model, with grounds designed by William Goldring, a key figure in the management of Kew Gardens.
This new model prioritised patient access to green open spaces, which were considered to have a calming effect.
Louis Wain’s Annual 1907.
Sweetness Coyed Love into its Smile Louis Wain. c.1935
Louis Wain, Sparrows, Ivy and Flowers. c.1930
At Bethlem and Napsbury, the art materials available to him were different and Wain was freed from commercial constraints and became increasingly interested in pattern and colour.
He even moved beyond the world of anthropomorphic cats and other animals to produce a series of fantastical landscapes featuring animals, but their presence is more suggestive, as though in embroidery. While at Napsbury Wain also began to produce many of his plant and flower drawings.
The cats also seemingly benefited from this new interest and among his most famous – or perhaps voguish – works today are his kaleidoscopic cat pictures.
There is still some conjecture around when these remarkable pictures were produced, but in the late 1930’s, psychiatrist Dr Walter Maclay became fascinated with them after finding a cache of them in a junk shop in Notting Hill.
Maclay believed the paintings fitted the contemporary understanding of psychotic deterioration: as Wain’s mental health declined, so he became less able to represent cats coherently. These theories are still used in psychiatric literature to help illustrate schizophrenia but as Wain rarely dated his work, it is now believed to be extremely difficult to demonstrate that the apparent shift in his artistic practice coincided with a decline of his mental state.
It is also highly possible that his experimentation in style was inspired by the family’s background in textile design. Growing up, Wain was surrounded by patterns and textiles as his father was a traveling textile salesman, his maternal grandmother a tapestry designer and his mother designed patterns for Turkish-style carpets and ecclesiastical fabrics.
Indeed, these later kaleidoscopic cat patterns were often constructed around a clear grid system, revealing them as careful compositions rather than the product of impulsiveness coming from someone who is gradually losing his perceptive skills.
Additionally, some of Wain’s later work produced at Napsbury Hospital was figurative and proves that he continued to be an accomplished and coherent artist whilst in a mental health care setting.
Louis Wain, Kaleidoscope Cats IV. Undated
Louis Wain, Kaleidoscope Cats IV. Undated.
Louis Wain, Kaleidoscope Cats VIII. Undated.
“This exhibition captures the vibrancy and imagination in Louis Wain’s work, but also reflects the relief and joy he found in the act of creating and the animals he depicted,” says David Luck, Archivist at Bethlem Museum of the Mind.
“Louis came to Bethlem following a very difficult time in his life, which ended with him being admitted to Springfield Asylum, but despite his mental health issues the art he created in Bethlem contains the same verve and energy as his earlier work.”
The exhibition also explores the historic use of animal therapy in the treatment of mental ill health and presents Wains’ body of work as a vivid illustration of the links between animals and human wellbeing.
“Animals have always been known for their affinity to man,” says Kate McCormack, Bethlem Royal Hospital’s Senior Drama Therapist. “At the Bethlem Royal Hospital, the Pets as Therapy programme has helped forge relationships between service-users and dogs, notably a Siberian husky named Tess.
“From offering unconditional affection, to aiding in confronting fears and phobias, pets can be a big part of a person’s recovery and journey to improved mental health. Animals can offer a very pure and unconditional relationship without demands or expectations.”
Even in the Victorian period, Bethlem Royal Hospital was renowned for its pioneering work with animals. An 1860 Illustrated London News article stated, ‘In the centre of the gallery wall there is a complete aviary full of joyously-carolling birds; and these little songsters seem to possess much power in raising the sometimes drooping spirits and soothing the troubled minds of the unhappy persons who dwell here.’
‘And ‘there is the same fondness manifested for pet birds and animals, cats, canaries, squirrels, greyhounds. [Some patients] pace the long gallery incessantly, pouring out their woes to those who will listen to them, or, if there are none to listen, to the dogs and cats.’
Tabby Toboggan Club by Louis Wain
Bethlem Museum of the Mind continues to celebrate the lives and achievements of those living with mental ill-health, and the work Wain produced while in hospital there can be viewed as a powerful example of the therapeutic and restorative effect that closeness with animals can have on human mental health.
Wain’s pictures made him a household name during his lifetime, and the Bethlem Museum of the Mind promises to play an important part in his return to the limelight in this fascinating, vibrant and spirit-lifting show.
Animal Therapy: the Cats of Louis Wain is at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind from December 4 2021 to April 13 2022.
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Bethlem Museum of the Mind
Beckenham, Kent
Founded in 1247, Bethlem Royal Hospital is now located in Beckenham, South London, as part of the wider South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. The Archives and Museum service is dedicated to the history of mental health treatment, and includes historical and archival material as well as a large…