.Science / Health
Schizophrenia, Aging and Art
"Louis Wain was born in London’s Clerkenwell district in 1860 and eventually became an artist, selling his sketches of dog shows to the Illustrated Sporting News. He married his youngest sister's governess, Emily Richardson, which was considered quite scandalous at the time. His wife contracted breast cancer and died three years later. To entertain her on her sickbed, Wain started drawing their cat, Peter. Emily encouraged him to send these drawings to newspapers and magazines, and soon the Louis Wain cat was a household name, not only in Britain but also in America, where his comics and drawings of cats appeared in several newspapers. Louis Wain was elected as President of the National Cat Club and wrote the book 'In Animal Land with Louis Wain' in 1904. Wain continued drawing cats for newspapers and children’s books until he fell victim to schizophrenia in 1917 at the age of 57. Coupled with WWI and the public dwindling interest it cats, Wain soon fell into poverty and in 1924 was certified “insane” and committed to the pauper’s wing of a mental hospital in Tooting, England. Years later a foundation was set up for him by his peers (including the famous H.G. Wells) which enabled Wain to spend the last years of his life in comfort in private asylums in Southwark and Napsbury, where he continued to paint and draw his cats. Wain allows us a unique insight into the delusions and course of illness in a late onset schizophrenic."