HISTORY: LOUIS WAIN AND THE VICTORIAN CAT MEME

Dogs are ok, but cats are my sort of thing.

As such they're fertile ground for new tees, stickers and other gifts.

Have recently discovered a British artist from Victorian times by the name of Louis Wain (lived from 1860 to 1939).

Wain's specialty was to draw anthropomorphized cats in various (human) social situations - or even just jolly single portraits. His work was extremely popular.

Unfortunately in his later years he may have suffered from schizophrenia. But even then it didn't stop him from continuing to produce illustrations although they became more and more fantastical.

At his height as an artist, his kitties had their own yearly anthologies and I guess you could say his works were the cat memes of their time. H. G. Wells said of him, "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."

His works are out of copyright now and so I've been adapting a few to t-shirt designs and they're proving to be quite popular.

It's a small selection and not likely to become extensive, but have recently added a sad blue kitty which is one of my favorites.

Check it out in the Unexpected Kittahs collection - link below.

<edit> look for a movie about Louis Wain, starring Benedict Cumberbatch to be released probably late 2019.


REDBUBBLE: SAD KITTY BUDDY
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