Louis Wain the cat painter: a Life of intellectual creations (and missed opportunities)

Having been an avid reader of this blog since his legal traineeship days (and albeit originally a convinced dog lover) this GuestKat has always been amused and entertained by its peculiar editorial line. So he is honoured to review a movie which, under the suggestion of PermaKat Neil Wilkof, he watched during a particular beginning to 2022, where as much as 50% of his acquaintances were quarantined because of Covid, including the undersigned (this Kat has since recovered, thanks, and he is rather confident as to the efficacy of the vaccines...).

The movie in question is The Electrical Life of Louis Wain.

Louis Wain (1860-1939) was a British painter who became famous in Victorian and Edwardian England. This great movie recounts his work and reconstructs his biography.

The main reason why the Kats believe that a film on Louis Wain deserves to be watched by the fans of this blog is that he was famous for his bizarre portraits of anthropomorphized cats with large eyes. On many occasions, those who write posts and contributions to this blog have used his images to accompany them. The reason is that the cats depicted by Wain are perfectly suited for such a purpose since they usually perform 'human' actions such as playing musical instruments, taking tea, fishing, and playing cards.

Notwithstanding an undeniable artistic success, Wain lived a tormented life. Despite his popularity, Wain struggled financially throughout his life and also suffered from mental illness.

And here comes the interesting part for IP fans who do not necessarily love cats (how can there be any out there though?). The movie also provides a couple of interesting pointers relating to IP, as the depicts Wain as being somehow naïve and above all completely unprepared for negotiating his IP rights [very little spoilers follow].

In some initial scenes, Wain claims to be an inventor, who has several inventions in his mind to be patented and relate to electricity. Also, in a rather dramatic scene, which precedes the death of Wain’s wife (this was the event that somehow triggered and accelerated his mental decline), Wain frantically describes to the family doctor, who is providing tragic information on the wife’s health, his idea for a possible patent on an ‘electrical suit’ that could cure his wife’s illness through the use of electricity. Despite the fact that a similar disclosure, even if occurred in the real world, would probably not have reached a level capable of destroying novelty, doing a little research I found out that actually Mr. Wain probably tried to patent some of his inventions, but without success.

In all this, I must admit that what really saddened this Kat is that, at a certain point in the movie, a sister of Wain’s criticizes him for not having adequately protected his works of art through registration. As we all know, in fact, nowadays artists do not have to bother with any registration in order to enjoy their copyright, thanks to the provisions of the Berne Convention. However the rule according to which copyright protection is formality-free in all the Union countries was only introduced in 1908 (with the Berlin revision) and therefore, before that date, Louis Wain did not enjoy the protection of his works as UK provided for a registration-based system, as many other countries also did at Mr. Wain’s time.

So it appears that Mr. Wain basically sold all the rights to his works without retaining any reproduction rights. Needless to say that he was easily tricked and occasionally deceived by his publishers, as many of his biographers recall. That’s probably why in a scene Wain’s also says (with typically British humour and while explaining to his sisters that he would have to move to USA in order to earn some money from his publications) that: “for a variety of reasons that we are all very well acquainted with, my work is currently of very little financial value on these shores”. Leaving aside the fact that another important reason for such a  move was that “people of America [we]re light years behind in their attitude towards cats” and so they needed to be taught by Mr. Wain about their superior powers!

So, the history of Mr. Wain is rather intertwined with that of cats, IP, and this blog, as it is a story of inventions, works of art and exploitation rights. A movie very much worth watching and a memento to the importance of adequately protecting authors’ and inventors’ rights adequately.

 

(above an oeuvre of Mr. Wain from 1908, named “patent cork screws”, which albeit probably shows Mr. Wain had not clear in mind the idea of what could be patented, possibly being from 1908 might have brought him some copyright revenues…)