Louis Wain (1869-1939)

Wain was born on 5 August 1860 in Clerkenwell in London. His father, William Matthew Wain, was a textile trader and embroiderer, his mother Julie Felicie Boiteux was a church embroiderer from a family of French origin.

Louis studied at the West London School of Art. After a brief period as an assistant master at the school, he became a freelance artist and later worked for the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News and the Illustrated London News. Louis specialised in drawing animals and country scenes and became famous for paintings of anthropomorphic cats.

H. G. Wells said of him: "He has made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves."

Wain was a prolific artist producing hundreds of pictures a year, ranging from illustrations that were used for children’s books, to postcards and posters for advertisements.

In 2021, Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy stared in The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, a feature length biopic of the artist which explores his marriage and the origin of his famous cats.

Louis Wain Inspired Mosaic at Willesden Green, Walm Lane

Louis Wain Inspired Mosaic at Willesden Green, Poplars Avenue

Wain began drawing cats to comfort his wife during a period of illness that would take her life in 1887. This was a fundamental switch in the focus of his work, and he went on to create cartoons full of lightness and humour that poked fun at human behaviour, expressed through cats.

After his father passed away in 1890, Wain moved to the Kent coast with his mother and five sisters to, where they remained until 1917, when they moved back to live in Kilburn, London.

Following a brain injury through an accidental fall from a London omnibus in 1914, Wain suffered years of poor mental health and was eventually certified as insane and admitted to a mental institution. As he struggled with mental illness, his cats became more psychedelic and experimental. There has been speculation about his condition and suggestions that he was suffering from schizophrenia.

‘The Electrical Life of Louis Wain’ Film Poster 2022 **(Click Here -Watch the trailer)**

Louis Wain lived at 41 Brondesbury Road in 1910s, which makes him one our local Willesden artists. He died in 1939 and was buried at St Mary's Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green. His work and links to Willesden Green are celebrated with two cat mosaics that were installed in the area, one on Walm Lane opposite Willesden Green underground station and the second on Poplars Avenue.