Louis Wain - 'A Teaparty at Napsbury' (1930s).

Social History (Museum of St Albans)

'A Teaparty at Napsbury' (1930s). Watercolour painting by Louis Wain (1860-1939). Louis Wain is the best-known inmate of Napsbury Hospital, London Colney, one of several asylums established south of St Albans in the late-nineteenth century. From the 1880s to 1914 Wain was a prolific popular artist, famous for his paintings of cats. The First World War destroyed the market for Wain's work, he lost his savings and sufffered a series of personal misfortunes. He was declared insane in 1923 and was transferred to Napsbury in 1930, at the age of 70. This painting was one of the works he produced while living there and combines themes he used continually in his works of this period: cats; a tea party; the prospect of tennis; and a mock-Tudor house. Like much of his last work it is in vivid colours.

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11/10/2007