The Hatching Cat of Gotham

As I write this post, I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of “A Christmas Catastrophe,” one of the popular cat illustrations by the great cat artist Louis William Wain. Of course it is only a reprint, but I still can’t wait to hang it on my wall (and I plan on getting some more Louis Wain reprints in the future).

Louis Wain was not a New Yorker — he was born in 1860 in Clerkenwell, London — but he did live in New York for a few years, so there is a New York City connection to his amazing life story.

In 1884, Louis married Emily Marie Richardson, who had been the governess of his five younger sisters. The couple never had an opportunity to have children, but they did have a pet cat — a stray black-and-white kitten that they rescued after hearing his cries in their yard. This cat, whom they called Peter, would have a profound effect on Louis Wain’s life.

Shortly after their marriage, Emily was diagnosed with breast cancer. During her three-year battle, she took great joy in watching Louis sketch pictures of Peter. It was Emily who encouraged her husband to get the drawings published.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Over the next few decades, Louis would go on to complete thousands of cat illustrations (possibly 150,000) for various periodicals and children’s books.

As the writer H. G. Wells said of Wain in a statement read on his behalf for the BBC in 1925, “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.”

Much has been written about Louis Wain, and hundreds of websites feature his illustrations and books. For my story, I am going to focus on the years he lived in New York, on his memories of Peter, and on his opinions of New York City cats in general.

Louis Wain Moves to New York

In October 1907, Louis moved to New York City to draw New York cats (and work aside the city’s fat cats). Perhaps he was motivated to make this journey to truly follow in the footsteps of John Henry Dolph, who was called “the leading cat painter in America” in 1894.

Upon arrival in the city, he began working for William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers, creating syndicated comic strips such as “Cats About Town” and “Grimalkin.” (Incidentally, Cats About Town is the name of my New York City walking tour company. Great minds think alike…)

Americans welcomed Louis with open paws: the New York press called him “the world’s most famous cat artist” and he was often invited to take part of events hosted by the American Cat Fancy and cat clubs across the country.

Because my stories focus on events in New York City, I wanted to find out where Louis lived while he was in the city. My response from Google’s AI was as follows: “Specific residential addresses for his time in New York are not detailed in the available records.”

Sorry, Google, but you didn’t try hard enough. It took me five minutes to find the answer. According to the 1910 census report, Louis Wain lived in room 15A of the Frederick Hotel at 210 West 56th Street.

In 1909, Louis was interviewed by a reporter for the New York Herald. The following is an excerpt from this article:

For the last fourteen years I have painted cats exclusively. When I first took to drawing and painting them they were treated as despised animals, looked on as vermin by sportsmen…The man who would take an interest in the cat movement was looked upon as effeminate. In fifteen years this has greatly changed.

“Peter, a pet cat who lived to be 16 years old, was my inspiration at the start. He was a wonderful black and white and was famous all over England for his cleverness. He didn’t like to pose much, in fact as soon as he saw me get out my sketch book he got sulky and refused to let me draw him. I have known only one cat vain enough to sit for a picture. That was a brown tabby I owned who positively enjoyed it. She would hold a pose for an hour.

“Peter was very peculiar, not like the ordinary cat with one set expression. He had a face with a sardonic grin and the funniest look in his eyes. I went to the Illustrated London News with a lot of drawings showing Peter standing on his head and doing all sorts of stunts.

“The editor said, ‘but cats don’t grin, they don’t stand on their heads. It’s not art.’ However, the proprietor saw the drawings and at once commissioned me to do a double page for the Christmas number. This was an instant success and I have devoted myself wholly to drawing and painting cats.”

After speaking for some time about Peter, Louis told the reporter how he was able to draw hundreds of varieties of cats:

To most persons all cats look alike. To be sure there are certain characteristics that are the same in all, but there is an endless variety of expressions. If you have noticed, a cat has a round face. It is a series of circles, the cheeks are round, its chops are round, its anatomy is round, there are rings around its neck and its ears are largely round. Working from this point you can secure hundreds of different varieties.”

According to Louis, the outlook for cats was better than that of dogs, but Americans still had some work to do to make America great for cats. “I find, however,” he said, “a great love for animals among Americans. It only awaits organized movement.”

Louis continued, “It will require the devotion of women of wealth and social position who will give their time and means to it as the English women have done to bring the cat to this exalted position in America.” (Perhaps he was referring to Caroline Ewen, who met both those requirements.)

Louis also shared his opinion about New York cats, and why they were at a disadvantage from their fellow felines who frolicked in fields on the other side of the pond.

“New York cats live in basements. In the homes they are kept below stairs and in the factories, business houses, banks and warehouses they are kept in cellars and only come out of their retreats after dark when they make night hideous by their yowls.

“There is no repose for cats in New York, you see, on account of so much noise, rush, and movement. The weak brain of the cat is not capable of taking it all in and it becomes confused and unmanageable. This makes an underground animal, which has consequently, because of its unnatural environment, grown very uncertain in temper, not to say savage, and as a result the specimens seen about this city are more or less what we call in England ‘strays.'”

Although Louis had only intended to spend a few months in America, he stayed in the city until his mother passed away in 1910, returning to England and assuming his former role as head of the Wain family (human and feline). Louis suffered a stroke in 1938 and passed away nine months later at the age of 78.

In 2021, Amazon Studios released a movie about Louis Wain’s life called The Electrical Life of Louis Wain and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Louis and Claire Foy as his wife, Emily. I watched it last night for the first time and I must say that the cats who portrayed Peter stole the show! (The film features about 40 different cats, so if you need a cat fix, this movie if for you.)

By the way, the main cat who played Peter in The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is named Felix Wilde, with cats Windsor Wilde and Norbury Ackland playing the younger and kitten versions of Peter, respectively. All three cats were trained by Charlotte Wilde.