Louis Wain Fact #20:
Sometimes, Wain held competitions through his annual, in which children from all over England were invited to submit to him essays about felines. A boy and a girl were each chosen as a winner and had their works published with permission. The prize? £5. It may not seem like much, but that is the equivalent to about £786 in 2023.
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On loan from the Bethlem Royal Hospital, catalogued by Patricia Allderidge.
108. GINGER CAT
Coloured pencil on paper
Inscribed on verso: F. Deuxbery, Mr. Louis Wain. Sept 1931
Date: September 1931
10" x 7"
The Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital Health Authority (Guttman-Maclay Collection)
This picture was drawn at Napsbury Hospital where the previous owner, Mr Deuxbery, was one of the nurses who looked after Wain. The background is presumably an example of the 'wallpaper patterns', so-called by the staff of Napsbury: in the early 30s Wain is said to have stopped drawing cats at all for a while, and drawn only these patterns, though he soon returned to cats.