Latest / Ridiculous History / Louis Wain, the Godfather of Cat Memes: Part 1

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Louis Wain, the Godfather of Cat Memes: Part 1 · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
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Speaker 1: welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. What better way to start
0:34
Speaker 1: off the show than to say, sometimes critics with the
0:38
Speaker 1: best of intentions are just wrong. There's a there's a
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Speaker 1: great quotation that will come up later today with one
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Speaker 1: critic who famously said, whoever would want to see a
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Speaker 1: picture of a cat? You'll see why this is important later,
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Speaker 1: but right now, I'm willing to bet that there are
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Speaker 1: many people listening to the show while also checking out
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Speaker 1: some sweet, sweet memes of cats. I'm I'm Ben. I
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Speaker 1: also have a cat to Oh yeah, yeah, Mr Vankman
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Speaker 1: and just the one that shall not be named right,
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Speaker 1: he has many names? Uh, the Colonel Mr Jack Potts.
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Speaker 1: That's a Lynch reference. Uh. And then yeah he's got
1:18
Speaker 1: he's got some names. No, you cohabitate with a cat
1:21
Speaker 1: as well. I do. My name is Noel and my
1:23
Speaker 1: cat only has two names. Uh. Came by both of
1:26
Speaker 1: them relatively honestly got this cat through my my dear
1:29
Speaker 1: buddy in front of the show, Frank Mulharan's parents. And uh,
1:33
Speaker 1: we're not told that the cat already had a name,
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Speaker 1: so we banned it together and named him Fernando. And
1:39
Speaker 1: then some time went by and Frank's parents are coming
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Speaker 1: for a visit and he's sort of really quickly huddled
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Speaker 1: with me and said, hey, man, in case they asked,
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Speaker 1: the cat's name is Robert. And I'm like, wait, what
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Speaker 1: the cat had a name all this time and you
1:50
Speaker 1: didn't say anything. And the cat it has a little bobtail,
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Speaker 1: hence the name Robert. So depending on his behavior, sometimes
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Speaker 1: he's a Fernando and sometimes he's a Robert. Yeah, and uh,
2:00
Speaker 1: roberta jaman if he's really in trouble, right, and you
2:03
Speaker 1: got the whole name or cathew, So I gotta say, man.
2:08
Speaker 1: One thing I like about our show is that we
2:11
Speaker 1: are all fans of multiple names and aliases. Uh. There
2:15
Speaker 1: is another person we always love to introduce at the
2:18
Speaker 1: top of show, a man with a couple of extra
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Speaker 1: names himself. That's our super producer, Casey Pegram. No, Casey,
2:26
Speaker 1: you're not gonna go for the bait uh as la bush.
2:29
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. Been he knows, no,
2:32
Speaker 1: he knows. He's always known. Amerta ban Omerta, all right, well,
2:37
Speaker 1: today's episode is a doozy. This is one that came
2:40
Speaker 1: to us directly from a man with many titles. You're
2:44
Speaker 1: familiar with him if you've listened to our show before.
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Speaker 1: Our research associate, our research guru, are very own wizard
2:52
Speaker 1: behind the curtain who we have. Finally, after weeks and
2:55
Speaker 1: months of teasing, we've finally got the chance to have
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Speaker 1: him on air today. Ridiculous historians, Please welcome to the
3:03
Speaker 1: audio stage, Gabe Lousier. Okay, Gabe, really quickly, we got
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Speaker 1: to clear this up. We some sometimes we do, Gabe Lozier.
3:14
Speaker 1: We we tend to lean into the French and call
3:16
Speaker 1: you ms Monsieur Lousier. Give it to us straight. Tell
3:20
Speaker 1: us your name game. Um, it is l u z
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Speaker 1: I E R. And that is generally how I pronounce it,
3:27
Speaker 1: by spelling it out, because I have no idea. Really,
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Speaker 1: I guess it's you know, if you lean into the French,
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Speaker 1: it's Lousier. Um. I do usually just spell it because
3:37
Speaker 1: I try not to say my own name as much
3:39
Speaker 1: as I can. Uh, my role pretty much since grade
3:42
Speaker 1: school has been anything but loser. And we're good, all right.
3:47
Speaker 1: I love it now, Gabe, you uh, you have been
3:51
Speaker 1: a familiar presence to many of our fellow listeners for
3:55
Speaker 1: a long time now, since since the show began. Uh,
3:58
Speaker 1: and we're gonna have to be completely transparent with you. Uh,
4:03
Speaker 1: time is weird for us pre quarantine. We're not a
4:06
Speaker 1: sure how many episodes we've actually done. But fans of
4:11
Speaker 1: other podcasts such as Part Time Genius by our friends
4:14
Speaker 1: Will and Mango, Uh, they may also recognize you. You
4:18
Speaker 1: you've worked with them in the past, is that correct? Uh, yeah,
4:21
Speaker 1: that's right. I hooked up with them back in their
4:23
Speaker 1: Mental Floss days and did some freelancing for that, and
4:27
Speaker 1: when they made the jump to podcasts, they brought me
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Speaker 1: on board as their research guy, and uh yeah, I've
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Speaker 1: been doing that ever since with them and do a
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Speaker 1: little work on Next Question with Katie Curic too. But
4:38
Speaker 1: uh yeah, part Time Genius and Ridiculous History, those are
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Speaker 1: kind of my bread and butter at this point, and
4:43
Speaker 1: the rest is podcast history, my friend. Uh, that's how
4:47
Speaker 1: we like to refer to to what we do here,
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Speaker 1: a ridiculous history and we couldn't do without you, and
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Speaker 1: you had some big shoes to fill two with Christopher
4:53
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Speaker 1: he was kind of our first research associate slash Guru
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Speaker 1: so we we appreciate you so very much, as do
5:09
Speaker 1: the ridiculous historians out there in podcast land. Well, thanks guys. Yeah,
5:13
Speaker 1: I always ask myself what would Chris do when I
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Speaker 1: pick a topic? And uh, Christopher sends his blessing as well. Um,
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Speaker 1: we have done our best to uh to make sure
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Speaker 1: that our nemesses. We have a couple of nemessies on
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Speaker 1: the show game. We just want to be clear with
5:31
Speaker 1: you about that, to make sure that they don't make
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Speaker 1: an appearance on today's episode. But honestly, we don't know
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Speaker 1: how it goes every time we're on on the mic,
5:38
Speaker 1: so so be Warren. There may be a quister, there
5:41
Speaker 1: may not. We don't know for sure, but we are.
5:45
Speaker 1: We were talking a little bit off air before we
5:47
Speaker 1: started rolling today and you have some very close personal
5:52
Speaker 1: ties with today's topic, which we're finally getting around to
5:58
Speaker 1: today's topic, uh, which is something that might surprise a
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Speaker 1: lot of people to learn. The artistic obsession with cats
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Speaker 1: or even dare we say, the mimetic obsession with cats
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Speaker 1: uh predates the Internet and in the West we can
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Speaker 1: trace some of this to like one guy. Yeah, that's right.
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Speaker 1: I mean he's kind of the father of the cat
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Speaker 1: meme about a hundred years before you know, memes or
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Speaker 1: the Internet even existed. And uh yeah, I mean I'm
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Speaker 1: obviously a cat I myself. I work in podcasting off
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Speaker 1: Mike primarily, so yeah, definitely a cat guy. This is
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Speaker 1: the most prolific cap artist in history, I would say, Um,
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Speaker 1: I feel pretty confident in that. And of course his
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Speaker 1: name is Lewis Wayne, and he's a British nineteenth century
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Speaker 1: uh artist, cat artist specifically. Yeah. Now that sounds hyperbolic,
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Speaker 1: but as we are soon to learn, that superlative is earned.
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Speaker 1: You'll recognize even if you don't know the name Louis Wayne,
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Speaker 1: you have we guarantee you seeing some of his work.
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Speaker 1: Maybe maybe let's learn a little bit about his early life,
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Speaker 1: how he became uh the father of the cat meme.
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Speaker 1: Uh know, when when does his story really start? Would
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Speaker 1: you say? Well, it starts on day one and and
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Speaker 1: and Clerkinwell, London, on the fifth of August of eighteen sixty.
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Speaker 1: He was born to Um, a textile entrepreneur who was
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Speaker 1: his father, and his mother was French and her name
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Speaker 1: was Felicia, which is a name that I love to
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Speaker 1: say out loud because it rolls off the tongue in
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Speaker 1: a very feline kind of way. Uh. And Louis Um
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Speaker 1: was was not alone. He was one of six children
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Speaker 1: and the only boy, which I can't personally relate to.
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Speaker 1: And my father was the middle child among like five sisters.
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Speaker 1: And it is a tough road to ho my friend.
8:00
Speaker 1: And let me tell you, he definitely, uh did not
8:03
Speaker 1: come away from that situation let's say, completely sane. Yeah
8:10
Speaker 1: that that's kind of putting it mildly, i'd say, but uh, yeah,
8:14
Speaker 1: I mean you mentioned that his father was in the
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Speaker 1: textile business, and it actually goes much further than that.
8:19
Speaker 1: Like his father was a traveling textile salesman, but his
8:23
Speaker 1: maternal grandfather, so his mom's dad, was a tapestry designer himself.
8:29
Speaker 1: And actually his mother was a designer of like Turkish
8:32
Speaker 1: style carpet patterns. So this guy grew up surrounded by
8:37
Speaker 1: lots of color and patterns. It was just kind of
8:40
Speaker 1: ingrained him in from an early age. Uh, not just
8:43
Speaker 1: carpet and textile but also wallpaper patterns. It was everywhere,
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Speaker 1: and it really shows up particularly in his later art,
8:51
Speaker 1: which we'll get to later. But uh, yeah, this was
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Speaker 1: a guy who came from an artist family. Yeah, and
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Speaker 1: it's interesting because he was only sort of a sponge
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Speaker 1: for these very visual aesthetics. And we know that he was,
9:07
Speaker 1: um not considered a prodigy in his early years of schooling. Right.
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Speaker 1: No one's like, whoa, look at all the math this
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Speaker 1: guy is doing. He's like a math doctor or something.
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Speaker 1: But he was. He was already exhibiting at a young
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Speaker 1: age talent and music and sports, and his aesthetic talents
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Speaker 1: led him to a student career studying at the West
9:31
Speaker 1: London School of Art. There's a great there's there's a
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Speaker 1: great article that you pulled gave from artsy dot net
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Speaker 1: that talks a little bit about his career in context
9:45
Speaker 1: of great cultural shifts. Right, so we see in his
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Speaker 1: career that you know, a micro cosmic look at the
9:52
Speaker 1: shift from Victorian to Edwardian eras. And what I thought
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Speaker 1: was interesting about this is it it kind of provided
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Speaker 1: the audience that he would later find as well. So
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Speaker 1: his So it's interesting that the audience for his art
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Speaker 1: was being created almost at the same time that his
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Speaker 1: artistic voice was coming into its own. Would you agree
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Speaker 1: with that. Oh, yeah, that's that's totally true. I mean
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Speaker 1: he was coming up in it was kind of post
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Speaker 1: industrial Revolution, pre World War One, so you know in England,
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Speaker 1: the middle class and upper class especially it was becoming
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Speaker 1: the leisure class. They had a lot more time on
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Speaker 1: their hands, they had a lot more opportunities for diversion,
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Speaker 1: and uh yeah, he kind of leaned into that with
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Speaker 1: his art, particularly in the early days. A lot of
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Speaker 1: his cats would be drawn sort of taking part in
10:45
Speaker 1: those activities, whether they're boating or having tea parties or
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Speaker 1: you know, playing cricket or croquet. All of this stuff
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Speaker 1: was very much of the era, and it was interest
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Speaker 1: that he had himself too. I mean, despite being kind
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Speaker 1: of an eccentric I person, he was also very athletic
11:02
Speaker 1: and outgoing in that regard. He was a sporty guy
11:05
Speaker 1: as well as an arty guy, which is not always
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Speaker 1: the case. Yeah, and it's it's funny because it's all
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Speaker 1: of these things. But just like you know with cats,
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Speaker 1: like you might see one where cats playing a trombone
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Speaker 1: or a cello or something like that. Uh, and just
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Speaker 1: doing human stuff before this idea of anthropomorphized uh, you know,
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Speaker 1: animals with celebrity voices became a thing. You know, like
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Speaker 1: he really was on the cutting edge as out there
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Speaker 1: is this must have seemed at the time, and I'm
11:32
Speaker 1: sure delightful too many. Um it's now something that we
11:35
Speaker 1: just totally take for granted beyond cat mean just in
11:37
Speaker 1: terms of like, you know, Disney movies, like early Disney
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Speaker 1: movies and the idea of talking animals doing human things
11:44
Speaker 1: and wearing human clothes. Right, Yeah, definitely, it was still
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Speaker 1: novel at the time what he was doing, and that's
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Speaker 1: why people kind of gravitated towards it. I don't think
11:51
Speaker 1: they really knew how strange the man behind the art was,
11:55
Speaker 1: but at the time it didn't really matter. You know,
11:57
Speaker 1: he found fame anyway, just kind of through capturing the
12:01
Speaker 1: spirit of the era and for whatever reason, channeling it
12:04
Speaker 1: in Two Cats. Yeah, and we do have to say, um,
12:08
Speaker 1: you know, we should be grateful today in pandemic aside
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Speaker 1: to have his art, because he was very close to
12:17
Speaker 1: just being a musician. I don't mean to say just
12:20
Speaker 1: being a musician. I'm sure he would have found his voice,
12:22
Speaker 1: but but he was very close to not pursuing a
12:25
Speaker 1: career in painting. There's an interesting confluence of events here,
12:35
Speaker 1: one amazing and one quite tragic. They happen in his
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Speaker 1: early twenties and just the space of two years. So
12:44
Speaker 1: when he is twenty years old, his father passes away.
12:49
Speaker 1: His mother will eventually go on to try to run
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Speaker 1: the weighing family textile business, but she becomes financially insolvent,
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Speaker 1: she goes bankrupt. And while this, you know, this tremendous,
13:02
Speaker 1: profound family tragedy is occurring, and while he's recovering or
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Speaker 1: dealing with that grief, just a year later, when he's
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Speaker 1: twenty one years old, in one and he's switched to
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Speaker 1: art by now, he meets and secures an agreement with
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Speaker 1: his first patron, the editor of the Illustrated London News,
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Speaker 1: a guy named Sir William Ingram. Now he's not, uh,
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Speaker 1: he's not drawing those those wild, fascinating pictures of cats.
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Speaker 1: He's drawing a much more, i would say, grounded illustration
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Speaker 1: of birds. I gotta interject really quickly. I love the
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Speaker 1: name of both the piece that he had commission and
13:42
Speaker 1: the publication that it ran, and it was titled Bullfinches
13:46
Speaker 1: on the Laurels, which is just charming, and the name
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Speaker 1: of the publication was just so exciting to me. It's
13:51
Speaker 1: the Illustrated, Sporting and Dramatic News. Dramatic News. What does
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Speaker 1: that mean, Gabe? Uh? Yeah, I mean basically, when his
14:00
Speaker 1: father died, Louis became the breadwinner for his family, for himself,
14:05
Speaker 1: his mother, and his five sisters. That's a lot of pressure.
14:08
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of what pushed him to finally
14:11
Speaker 1: make a decision whether he was going to be a
14:13
Speaker 1: musician or an artist or he actually also kicked around
14:17
Speaker 1: the idea of being a chemist at one point too.
14:19
Speaker 1: But he was able to find work, as we mentioned
14:22
Speaker 1: in illustration, and that was for the news because this
14:25
Speaker 1: was at a time when photography wasn't really reliable enough
14:30
Speaker 1: to be used in newspapers, and so instead you would
14:33
Speaker 1: send around illustrators to just jot down what they were
14:36
Speaker 1: seeing and sketch it out. And a lot of the
14:38
Speaker 1: time the journalists doing that, the illustrator doing that would
14:42
Speaker 1: be the one writing these pieces too, And that was
14:44
Speaker 1: the case for for Louis Wayne. He was doing the
14:48
Speaker 1: right the editorial and the illustration for for news. I
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Speaker 1: don't know what the news entailed bowl finches on the laurels,
14:55
Speaker 1: you know, like what exactly the news was with these
14:57
Speaker 1: birds or if that was just for decoration, but I
15:00
Speaker 1: was yeah, that was kind of his big break. So
15:03
Speaker 1: really really a functional job at this point, Like you know,
15:06
Speaker 1: you're serving the purpose of like turning around assignments very quickly.
15:09
Speaker 1: You'd have to be a really efficient artist and and
15:12
Speaker 1: work very quickly and be able to sketch what you
15:14
Speaker 1: see and turn it around quickly. And in addition, he
15:16
Speaker 1: said he was writing the copy too, Is that right? Yeah, absolutely,
15:19
Speaker 1: it was a lot of stress and pressure to get
15:22
Speaker 1: this right, um, both in writing and you know in visuals,
15:26
Speaker 1: and yeah, you had a pretty quick turnaround with these
15:28
Speaker 1: deadlines too, but yeah, it was it was a really
15:31
Speaker 1: realistic style that he was going with at the time,
15:33
Speaker 1: because again this was for you know, news publication, so uh,
15:37
Speaker 1: nothing too creative or fanciful yet in that department, it
15:40
Speaker 1: was kind of you know a lot of still life
15:42
Speaker 1: and uh, kind of what you would see like in
15:44
Speaker 1: a courtroom, courtroom renderings and stuff like that, just drawn
15:47
Speaker 1: on the spot. And uh, of course I want to
15:51
Speaker 1: step back. I didn't want to roll over. We are
15:54
Speaker 1: doing this on a zoom call, so let me know
15:56
Speaker 1: if I actually interrupted you bloody. But I wanted to
15:58
Speaker 1: point out, of course that uh, this little known fact,
16:03
Speaker 1: uh the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News was Sir William
16:07
Speaker 1: Ingram's response to the uh much more popular at the time,
16:13
Speaker 1: non illustrated Sedate and Dry Reports, which was you know,
16:19
Speaker 1: they sold millions of copies. It was just a list
16:22
Speaker 1: of various bushels of like grain and uh some you know,
16:28
Speaker 1: uh some descriptions, but not illustrations of various styles of shoe.
16:33
Speaker 1: It was just a different time, you know, it was
16:35
Speaker 1: a different time. Yeah, you're right, You're right. It was
16:39
Speaker 1: in this in this uh milieu, in this cultural stew
16:44
Speaker 1: Being a commercial artist doesn't give one a lot of
16:47
Speaker 1: time to explore one's aesthetic voice, right. This is really
16:52
Speaker 1: keeping the lights on, keeping the food on the table.
16:54
Speaker 1: And he is forced to grow up more quickly than
16:57
Speaker 1: others his same age at the time, and he meets
17:01
Speaker 1: and falls in love with the governess of his sisters,
17:06
Speaker 1: Emily Richardson. She's she's a little bit older than he is.
17:11
Speaker 1: See he's like he's in his early twenties, she's probably
17:14
Speaker 1: in her early thirties. But their head over heels and
17:17
Speaker 1: it's beautiful. They moved in together and they get married
17:19
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty four, and she is always his greatest
17:24
Speaker 1: champion for these cat pictures. Quick point of order, gentleman, governess,
17:28
Speaker 1: is that like a chaperone? Is that sort of a handmaiden? Like?
17:32
Speaker 1: What are we talking here? A no pair? Yeah, it's
17:34
Speaker 1: like Mary Poppins, right, Yeah, I think that's just right.
17:38
Speaker 1: You're you're you're both a tutor and a babysitter and
17:42
Speaker 1: at times a cook. Yeah. So he hit it off
17:45
Speaker 1: with this new governess. They quickly fell in love, got married,
17:48
Speaker 1: moved in together, and early on in their relationship one
17:52
Speaker 1: thing that kind of drew them close was they rescued
17:54
Speaker 1: this stray cat from the rain. They named him Peter
17:58
Speaker 1: or Peter the Great, and for a time, you know,
18:01
Speaker 1: they were really just happy and young and love together.
18:04
Speaker 1: He was working for the news and uh, you know,
18:06
Speaker 1: making money for the family and all was well. But unfortunately, um,
18:11
Speaker 1: pretty soon after they got together, Emily was diagnosed with
18:15
Speaker 1: breast cancer and it turned out to be inoperable. And
18:20
Speaker 1: kind of during this time, her biggest comfort and consolation was, uh,
18:24
Speaker 1: Peter the cat and Lewis Wayne's drawings of him. He
18:28
Speaker 1: would just sketch their cat and do funny things like
18:32
Speaker 1: put spectacles on the cat and then draw it and
18:34
Speaker 1: make it look like it was reading the newspaper. And
18:37
Speaker 1: she apparently got a huge kick out of this, and
18:39
Speaker 1: I think they both did, and that was kind of,
18:42
Speaker 1: you know, the thing that sparked his career in cats.
18:45
Speaker 1: I want to point out really quickly, Uh, Wayne and
18:49
Speaker 1: our our our own Ben Bolan, do you kind of
18:52
Speaker 1: have something in common because technically, Ben, your cat's name
18:55
Speaker 1: is Peter Dr Bankman. That is correct. Yeah, and uh,
18:59
Speaker 1: you know, long time listeners especially people have been listening
19:02
Speaker 1: since we've been recording remotely, you probably recognize all of
19:07
Speaker 1: our cats from there there. Uh I say this, Uh,
19:11
Speaker 1: they're non completely consensual appearances on the show, but we definitely,
19:16
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to say we definitely owe a
19:18
Speaker 1: lot to our pets. And one thing here that's so
19:22
Speaker 1: so amazing about this story is that later, unfortunately, when
19:28
Speaker 1: Emily has passed away, he's, uh, he still has these
19:32
Speaker 1: cat pictures and he does eventually sell them. I think
19:35
Speaker 1: the first one he sells eighteen eighty six. But when
19:37
Speaker 1: he's looking back on his career, he has a very
19:40
Speaker 1: interesting quote where he says to him, properly belongs to
19:44
Speaker 1: the foundation of my career, the developments of my initial
19:47
Speaker 1: efforts and the establishing of my work. So credit where
19:51
Speaker 1: its due. You gotta respect the guy, and you know,
19:53
Speaker 1: to be fair and not to take anything away from
19:56
Speaker 1: Peter's contribution. But the guy we mentioned earlier, the editor,
20:00
Speaker 1: the publisher, I'm sorry, Sir Ingram. He's kind of a
20:03
Speaker 1: lifelong benefactor for Wayne. He really gave him that big break,
20:07
Speaker 1: you know, in the newspaper. And he's also the guy
20:10
Speaker 1: that that first publishes his cat pictures um and he
20:13
Speaker 1: you know, he he helps, uh, he helps the Wayne
20:16
Speaker 1: family find a house in the countryside and really just
20:19
Speaker 1: kind of looks after this guy and and kind of
20:21
Speaker 1: sets him up in the early days of his career.
20:24
Speaker 1: So you know, Peter did a lot, but also Sir
20:27
Speaker 1: Ingram gets a little credit, I guess well, and not
20:29
Speaker 1: to get to dour too quickly, but it is also
20:32
Speaker 1: a career that was kind of founded in grief, because
20:36
Speaker 1: he really did get this push to start sketching cats
20:40
Speaker 1: from his ailing wife, and then continued that after she passed,
20:44
Speaker 1: which while certainly in uh you know, a way of
20:47
Speaker 1: honoring her memory, had to have been somewhat painful. Yeah,
20:50
Speaker 1: that's a good point, I would think. So she she was,
20:53
Speaker 1: she was a big proponent of it. She wanted him
20:55
Speaker 1: to go, you know, full tilt into this cat art
20:57
Speaker 1: and kept encouraging him to do it and take the
21:00
Speaker 1: sketches to your editors, you know, and let's see what
21:02
Speaker 1: they what they think. Maybe maybe this is you know,
21:05
Speaker 1: a more fun avenue for you to kind of explore
21:07
Speaker 1: your artistic side. And uh yeah, you kind of alluded
21:10
Speaker 1: to it earlier. Been but it wasn't the warmest reception
21:14
Speaker 1: at first. No, no, Gabe, no, casey as well, tell me,
21:20
Speaker 1: tell me that people appreciated the painful place from which
21:24
Speaker 1: this uh talent emerged. Tell me that the critics were
21:27
Speaker 1: over the moon about this. Please someone, Yeah, not so much.
21:32
Speaker 1: What one critic um an editor actually of the paper
21:35
Speaker 1: that he was submitting this, uh this this picture too,
21:38
Speaker 1: and of course it was a picture of Peter the
21:40
Speaker 1: Great reportedly asked Wayne, whoever would want to see a
21:44
Speaker 1: picture of a cat? And It's funny. When Ben quoted
21:48
Speaker 1: that at the top of the show, my immediate response was,
21:52
Speaker 1: what an absurd question in this our internet times, you know,
21:57
Speaker 1: where like cat pictures are king basically internet currency, you know. Um.
22:02
Speaker 1: And he really, you know, sometimes you just two ahead
22:05
Speaker 1: of your time and people just don't see the genius
22:09
Speaker 1: that is cat pics. Um. And he really took it further.
22:14
Speaker 1: He started to really develop from just doing portraits of cats,
22:18
Speaker 1: which is what this one would have been. Uh, he
22:20
Speaker 1: doubled down. He was not deterred. He really created the
22:25
Speaker 1: blueprint for those anthropomorphic you know, Disney and Pixar animals
22:30
Speaker 1: that we all know and love today and that are
22:31
Speaker 1: like big, big business. Right. Yeah, it's true. He was
22:35
Speaker 1: not deterred in the slightest. I I actually read that
22:38
Speaker 1: at the peak of his career, he was he was
22:40
Speaker 1: churning out like six hundred to a thousand unique cat
22:43
Speaker 1: pictures every year. Um. And he kept this up for
22:47
Speaker 1: for quite a long time. The peak of his career
22:50
Speaker 1: is considered to be a nineteen hundred to nineteen fifteen,
22:53
Speaker 1: So I mean five hundred to a thousand unique cat
22:57
Speaker 1: pictures every year for you know, a decade and a
22:59
Speaker 1: half two decades. That's uh, that's commitment. Yeah, like you said, no,
23:09
Speaker 1: he's developing this style. And when he gets his big
23:12
Speaker 1: break in the Illustrated London News with a with a
23:16
Speaker 1: actual cat photo, he is lauded for a piece called
23:20
Speaker 1: a Kittens Christmas Party and boom, overnight success, overnight fame.
23:26
Speaker 1: You can find a photo or you can find an
23:28
Speaker 1: image of this online. I want to just describe it
23:31
Speaker 1: really quickly. Uh, it's a lot to unpack. Um. The
23:35
Speaker 1: top of it almost looks like a last Supper esque
23:39
Speaker 1: kind of like situation, a tableau really with these kittens,
23:43
Speaker 1: like sitting at a dinner table with plates and cups
23:47
Speaker 1: and saucers in front of them. It's is just ridiculous
23:50
Speaker 1: it would have thought to do that. One of them
23:52
Speaker 1: looks to be consulting some sort of document. I don't
23:55
Speaker 1: know what. That might have been a menu perhaps, but
23:57
Speaker 1: they're they're not anthropomorphic quite yet. They are sitting at
24:00
Speaker 1: a table, but they are still in kitten you know poses,
24:04
Speaker 1: and there's one kind of playing with a toy or
24:07
Speaker 1: something on the table and it almost has laid out
24:09
Speaker 1: like a comic where there's panels and stuff. Gabe, you
24:12
Speaker 1: wanted to talk a little bit more about this particular
24:14
Speaker 1: piece that really pushed him into the stratosphere. Uh yeah,
24:18
Speaker 1: so this was for um, like you said that this
24:20
Speaker 1: was a kitten's Christmas party. So this was for the
24:22
Speaker 1: Christmas edition of the Illustrated London News. And I believe
24:27
Speaker 1: it accompanied a short story, a Christmas story about some cats,
24:32
Speaker 1: you know, celebrating Christmas. So it was kind of meant
24:35
Speaker 1: to go along with the story, and um, you know,
24:37
Speaker 1: just show showed cats kind of taking part in human activities.
24:41
Speaker 1: But again, like you mentioned, they weren't anthropomorphized yet. Uh,
24:44
Speaker 1: that would come a little bit later. But still people
24:48
Speaker 1: loved just kind of the energy of it, the ridiculous nous,
24:51
Speaker 1: the humor that was you know, on display, and this illustration,
24:55
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, they wanted more. And Wayne was more
24:59
Speaker 1: than happy to a blige. Yeah, he was not to
25:02
Speaker 1: do He was not one of those people who says like, no,
25:06
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be boxed in. I do a lot
25:08
Speaker 1: of other different stuff. You know. You hear about actors
25:11
Speaker 1: who say like I've been cast in this role I
25:13
Speaker 1: can no longer escape, or musicians who hate having to
25:17
Speaker 1: play the same song over and over in some sort
25:20
Speaker 1: of weird limbo. Wayne was down, he was super down
25:24
Speaker 1: cats to find his career, and he was roughly one
25:28
Speaker 1: million cat percent on board. He had. You know, there's
25:31
Speaker 1: great pr about it where he's uh there, there's a
25:34
Speaker 1: photograph of him that was kind of making the rounds
25:38
Speaker 1: when people did uh think pieces or get to know
25:41
Speaker 1: your author kind of things about him. Uh, and it
25:43
Speaker 1: shows him, you know, he's he's getting ready to draw
25:46
Speaker 1: what is shortley a cat, and he's also you know,
25:50
Speaker 1: hesitating before he draws the cat because he needs to
25:54
Speaker 1: pet the real cat that's sitting next to him, his
25:58
Speaker 1: desk mate. And uh, this is where we start to
26:02
Speaker 1: see his kind of um, his evolution really kick into gear.
26:07
Speaker 1: So I would say that Kitten's Christmas party is whimsical, right,
26:12
Speaker 1: And a lot of his cats were kind of realistic,
26:17
Speaker 1: more realistic affairs, think more like w. H Auden the
26:20
Speaker 1: way he drew birds, you know, like he wanted them
26:24
Speaker 1: these look like real cats. But sure enough, he he
26:28
Speaker 1: heard the public or he heard an inner voice of
26:30
Speaker 1: his own, and his cats started walking on their hind legs,
26:36
Speaker 1: they started grinning. Uh, you know, they were doing more
26:39
Speaker 1: and more of the things that you described nol In
26:42
Speaker 1: in that picture. And this is where we get to
26:45
Speaker 1: a little bit of um audience interpretation, like who owns
26:49
Speaker 1: the meaning of a work of art does? Is it
26:51
Speaker 1: the artist, the creator or is it the audience the observer?
26:54
Speaker 1: Because some people will tell you, especially the author of
26:59
Speaker 1: an Atlas obscure or an article in particular, we'll tell
27:02
Speaker 1: you that these cats seem really cute, almost sacharan at times,
27:06
Speaker 1: but they could also be interpreted as sinister. Where do
27:10
Speaker 1: you guys think that comes from? I think the Christmas
27:12
Speaker 1: painting is actually quite sinister, honestly. Uh. There's a certain
27:16
Speaker 1: cultishness to it. They're like circling around and there's like
27:19
Speaker 1: ones holding flags kind of in the background, and there's
27:22
Speaker 1: one scenario where they're like playing with these mice that
27:25
Speaker 1: are lined up. I find the whole thing to be
27:28
Speaker 1: a little sinister. I that one in particular, I know,
27:30
Speaker 1: he moves more towards the saccharin. You know, let's put
27:33
Speaker 1: them in patents, you know all that. But this particular
27:35
Speaker 1: one I found a little bit on the creepy side.
27:38
Speaker 1: What do you think, Gabe, Yeah, I think, uh, you
27:40
Speaker 1: know that kind of is a thread through all of
27:42
Speaker 1: his work I think. I mean, even once he's he's
27:45
Speaker 1: drawing these cutesye anthropomorphized cats, there is still an element
27:50
Speaker 1: of danger or kind of mischievous nous to them. Um,
27:54
Speaker 1: A lot of the times he's drawing cats kind of
27:57
Speaker 1: in distress, Like there's a bunch of cats pie held
28:00
Speaker 1: into a car and it's sinking in a lake or
28:03
Speaker 1: something like that. Or there's cats out ice skating and there,
28:07
Speaker 1: you know, there's a sign that says dangerous and the
28:09
Speaker 1: ice is is thin and they're falling through the ice
28:12
Speaker 1: and kind of you know, shrieking. And usually there's a
28:15
Speaker 1: couple of cats off to the side kind of slightly
28:17
Speaker 1: grinning as if they're enjoying this. So there was an
28:21
Speaker 1: edgy side to this, uh you know what we might
28:23
Speaker 1: be tempted to call cute c art and that came
28:25
Speaker 1: out more and more as his career went along. A
28:29
Speaker 1: big break for him was actually the development of postcards. Um.
28:34
Speaker 1: This was something strange I found out. But the golden
28:36
Speaker 1: age of postcards, there is such a thing, was not
28:40
Speaker 1: considered nineteen hundred to nineteen fifteen, and that is like
28:44
Speaker 1: his peak period. UM. And basically people fell in love
28:48
Speaker 1: with these designs. I think he sold over eleven hundred
28:53
Speaker 1: unique postcard designs over the years. So you know, each
28:56
Speaker 1: postcard would have, you know, feature one cat or multiple
29:00
Speaker 1: cats and these kind of scenarios, and yeah, they were
29:03
Speaker 1: pretty adorable, but there was always kind of a hint
29:06
Speaker 1: of menace to them. Well, as we all know and
29:09
Speaker 1: can attest to, cats are tolls. I mean, every every
29:12
Speaker 1: incredibly intelligent creature can be a told. My mine are
29:16
Speaker 1: hopefully more eccentric. I'm saying that because they can hear me. Help.
29:20
Speaker 1: But but here, you know, here we are. We've painted
29:23
Speaker 1: the origin story right, and we've painted the rise to
29:27
Speaker 1: the rise to fame or at least two public prominence.
29:31
Speaker 1: But you can already here ridiculous historians that there are
29:36
Speaker 1: some you know, there's some minor keys sinking in to
29:40
Speaker 1: our our composition. So what we'd like to do today
29:45
Speaker 1: is call this part one. We are going to explore
29:50
Speaker 1: the rest of the story of Louis Wayne in part
29:54
Speaker 1: two of our episode. And just to let you know,
29:58
Speaker 1: things are going to it weird, so please tune in immediately. Gabe,
30:05
Speaker 1: you gotta come with us on this journey, right, You're
30:07
Speaker 1: coming with us and down this rabbit hole or should
30:09
Speaker 1: I say this kitten hole. Yeah, you can't keep me away. No,
30:14
Speaker 1: this is oh man like like Gene Wilder playing Willie
30:18
Speaker 1: Walker said no, wait, that's rocky horror picture show. You
30:21
Speaker 1: know the person who said Antissa patient, I am looking
30:27
Speaker 1: forward to this. Thanks as always to our super producer
30:30
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram, Oh my gosh, and for the first time
30:32
Speaker 1: ever in real life. Thanks to Cabe Lousier Lose your
30:37
Speaker 1: anything but loser uh for being the best research associate
30:41
Speaker 1: and guests that that a group of podcast nerds could
30:45
Speaker 1: ask for. Thanks for being here, man, Thanks for having me. Guys,
30:48
Speaker 1: this was really fun. Thanks to super producer Casey Pegram
30:50
Speaker 1: as always, Alex Williams who composed our theme. Christopher hassiotis
30:54
Speaker 1: here in spirit. Thanks of course to Eve's Jeff Coat,
30:58
Speaker 1: our peer podcast Sir, Thanks as always do Jonathan Strickland
31:03
Speaker 1: a k a. The Quister, Thanks to Louis Wayne and
31:09
Speaker 1: no thanks to you. Thanks to YouTube Benn. We'll see
31:11
Speaker 1: you next time. Folks. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
31:22
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
31:25
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.