Cats by Louis Wain - Swanson Gallery, Thurso

13th June 2008

A delightful selection of Louis Wain's very recognisable and much loved cats is now on at the Swanson Gallery, Thurso for 4 weeks 14 June to 12 July 2008 and will move to St Fergus Gallery, Wick later in the summer.

Louis Wain studied at West London School of Art and began his career as an art journalist; however it was for his pictures of cats that he became famous. From the 1880s until the outbreak of the First World War the 'Louis Wain cat' was hugely popular. Appearing in books, magazines and postcards, Wain's cats are to be found engaging in many forms of human activity from playing cricket, digging up roads and riding bicycles to parading the latest fashions at Ascot.

In spite of his fame, Louis Wain suffered real poverty during the First Wolrd War and, always known as being eccentric, he developed signs of serious mental disorder and was eventually certified insane in 1924. He was transferred to the Bethlem Hospital in 1925 and died in 1939. The works in this exhibition are from the Bethlem Art and History Collections Trust.