Wain's World


Louis Wain began his working life as a humble art master at the West London School of Art but ended it with a reputation as one of the most popular postcard artists in history. Wain’s cat postcards sold in their thousands each year between the 1890s and 1920s and are still fetching some of the highest postcard prices on the antiques market today. ‘We’re all in the Finals’ (c.1900) depicts three triumphant looking cats wielding tennis rackets and is valued at around $50 - $60. ‘The Pierrots’ (c.1920) shows a posse of cats in fancy dress and is valued at $75, and ‘The Forty Thieves’ (c.1920) shows a gang of cats peeping out of dustbins and is valued at $95.

Wain adored cats and decided early on in life that he would draw nothing else. At this time the nation’s interest in cats was just developing - the first cat show was held at London’s Crystal Palace in 1871 and the National Cat Club was founded in 1887. In the Victorian era, cats were a popular theme for illustrations but by the turn of the century, keeping a cat was one of the most popular hobbies in England. Wain himself was elected President of the National Cat Club in 1890. By then his cat drawings had already attracted a great deal of attention after the Illustrated London News had published the now famous ‘A Kittens Christmas Party’ in their 1884 Christmas Edition. But despite his growing commercial success, Wain’s personal life was beset by problems. He had caused a scandal when he married the family governess who was 30 years his senior and who had been employed to look after his sisters. In fact they were very happy but after only three years of marriage she was diagnosed with a fatal disease and died shortly afterwards. For the rest of his working life he was plagued by depression and in 1924 was diagnosed schizophrenic and placed in an institution. Perhaps it was a result of his personal anguish that his cat pictures are so appealing – they are not just pretty, fluffy creatures but real characters full of personality. Throughout his life, it was cats rather than his fellow men that were his closest companions. His legacy to the cat was to place cat postcards in pride of place on mantelpieces across England.