Louis Wain (ill) - A letter with an original Louis Wain illustration - 1890

This is a rare original Louis Wain illustration from 1890. The illustration is in pencil and ink and shows a fox receiving a Christmas card from a bear. The fox is sitting in front of a doorway while two other dogs lie on the ground. The illustration is on a letter dated 1890, which shares the author's appreciation of a Christmas party at 16 Silverdale Road, Oxton, Cheshire. The letterhead is from Silverdale Road, Oxton, Cheshire. The letter and illustration are in excellent condition. On the back is a Louis Wain sketch with crayon. This piece provides a unique glimpse into the early work of this renowned artist. Louis William Wain (5 August 1860 – 4 July 1939) was an English artist best known for his drawings of anthropomorphic cats and kittens. Wain was born in Clerkenwell, London, England, but spent his early years in a London suburb, Kensington. Wain sold his first drawing in 1881 and gave up his teaching post the following year at the West London School of Art to become a full-time illustrator, but never lost his passion for his previous profession, and continued to work with and inspire young artists. Wain married in 1884, but became a widower three years later, and moved to the Kent coast with his mother and five sisters, where he remained, apart from a period of three years spent in New York, until the family returned to London in 1917. In 1914, he sustained severe head injuries in a horse-drawn omnibus accident. In 1924, he was certified insane and spent the remaining 15 years of his life in mental asylums. He continued to draw and paint throughout his life. Some of his later abstract paintings have been seen as precursors to psychedelic art. Throughout his life Wain produced hundreds of drawings and paintings a year for magazines and books, including Louis Wain's Annual, which ran from 1901 to 1921. His work also appeared on postcards, advertisements, and he had brief ventures into ceramics and animated films. Despite his popularity and prolific production, Wain was not a wealthy man, possibly because he sold his work cheaply and relinquished copyright to his work. His work was popular with magazines, as he delivered hundreds of images per year. He was an incredible artist.