This article originally appeared in the Kilburn Times.
Artists find inspiration in many things. Vincent van Gogh loved the intense colours of the Provencal countryside, Paul Gaughin the exotic beauty of the South Sea Islands and Monet his beloved gardens which inspired his famous water lily paintings.
Louis Wain’s passion was cats.
The London suburban artist produced tens of thousands of drawings and illustrations of cats in a variety of human poses and occupation.
His caricatures gently poked fun at the absurdity of everyday life but his humour hid a lifelong struggle with mental illness.
At his height of his fame, Wain was one of the world’s most popular artists but he died alone in a mental hospital in 1939.
Top Cat: A Louis Wain cat
His unique talent would have gone undiscovered but for his wife’s encouragement.
The couple had received a kitten as wedding gifts and, when his wife fell ill with cancer, Wain spent hours at her bedside in sketching the cat as it played among the covers
Louis already worked as a newspaper artist and his dying wife suggested he show his boss the cat drawings.
His efforts were snubbed until several years later when the editor of the Illustrated London News discovered them gathering dust in a drawer.
He suggested that Wain draw a double-page illustration for a festive edition of the magazine showing a cats’ Christmas party. Wain responded with a picture containing more than 100 cats.
It might have seemed a Herculean task but Wain could draw with either hand with equal deftness and often amused his fellow workers by drawing with both at the same time.
The illustration was a huge success and he spent the next 15 years drawing up to 1,500 cats a year for newspapers and periodicals. His cats played across nursery walls of the world and appeared on postcards, posters and playing cards.
They played golf, drove cars and went fishing and reflected the various fads and fashions of their owners. When Europe went to war in 1914 the cats donned khaki and nursing uniforms.
The author H.G Wells said: ‘He made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. Any British cats that don’t look and live like Louis Wain cats should be ashamed of themselves.”
Louis won a place in the hearts of a nation of animal lovers and suddenly found himself regarded as a world authority on felines. He was elected President of the National Cat Club, attended jamborees and fetes and was often quoted on the subject.
His success spread to America where he was on the verge of pioneering the film cartoon about a character called Pussyfoot.
Pussyfoot was later acknowledged as an inspiration for Felix the Cat and several Walt Disney characters.
Unfortunately, Wain was hit by a bus and seriously hurt just before he could sign a film contract and spent several weeks in hospital.
It marked a turning point in the artist’s fortunes.
He had never recovered from death of his beloved wife Emily and a series of bad investments and bad luck – a ship transporting a container full of his china cats was torpedoed and sunk during the war – left him with little money.
His mental health began to unravel.
Wain had always been a generous man lending freely and rarely quibbling over the cost of commissions. He didn’t want to trouble his friends with his problems and stopped visiting his old haunts to avoid them.
He became a recluse preferring the company of his 17 cats. His mental condition worsened and Wain was committed to Middlesex County Asylum suffering from schizophrenia.
Hardly anyone realised what had happened to the reclusive genius until a journalist recognised him during an unrelated visit.
A number of public figures including Prime Minister Ramsey McDonald and H.G Wells launched a public appeal and Wain was transferred to a hospital where he had a private room and could continue painting.
His illness was mirrored in a series of cat paintings that become progressively more abstract as his grasp on reality loosened.
The colours became increasingly vivid, the images blurring and disintegrating into a vortex of kaleidoscopic patterns during the worst bouts of his illness.
The paintings are today regarded as some of the most important and graphic representations of mental illness ever captured by an artist,
Louis Wain died in Bethlam Hospital in 1939.
If you happen visit his final resting place in St Mary’s Cemetery, Kensal Green, London, tread quietly. Local legend says that, for years, a cat was seen playing by the graveside of its master.
The Stanmore coin collector, who is president of Harrow Coin Club, has amassed an impressive collection during the past 30 years.
The club is one of the oldest numismatic societies in the country and is somewhere that enthusiasts can exchange coins and listen to guest speakers extolling the benefits of anything from metal detecting to Japanese military currency.
So what’s the attraction of putting your hand in your pocket for money that has lost its value?
“Coins have a way of reflecting significant times and events,” says the retired civil engineer who spent much of his career in far-flung parts of the world like Papua New Guinea and Brazil.
“It’s a fascinating subject. Once you start reading about the history surrounding a coin, one thing leads to another.”
Rex’s globe trotting career has allowed him to build an extensive collection of several thousand coins along with paper money and tokens.
His oldest coin dates back to the reign of Alfred the Great more than 1,000 years ago when Britain’s shores were under siege from Viking raiders.
Surprisingly, older currency is not as rare or expensive as you might imagine. And much of that is down to the work of metal detector enthusiasts.
A silver drachma from the reign of Alexander the Great can cost as little as £30, while a silver denarius from one of the early Roman emperors can cost just £15.
Not that some coins don’t cost a pretty penny.
The most expensive tend to be limited issues that never make it into public circulation such as a 1933 American double eagle, which sold at auction for £4.1m.
Nearly half-a-million were produced during the height of the Depression but a dispute over the design led to them being scrapped and melted down.
US Treasury officers later discovered that ten of the coins had disappeared. Nine were recovered but the tenth eluded their grasp and later turned up in a private collection owned by the King of Egypt.
It disappeared again in the mid-1950s before resurfacing in 1996 when a British coin dealer attempted to sell it to Government undercover agents in New York.
Things are decidedly less racy at Harrow Coin Club but Rex puts his monetary talents to good use by helping sell coin collections donated to local charities.
He said: “I usually manage to raise about £10,000 a year on their behalf. The collections are often donated when someone dies and no-one else in the family is interested in the hobby.”
Harrow Coin Club meets bi-monthly throughout the year except in July and August. Anyone with an interest is welcome to attend. For details, ring Rex Edwards on 020 8952 8765.
This article appeared in Harrow People and the Harrow Times in 2008.
