Alexander Colville Gordon was an American-born tattooer who, apparently, got his introduction on the Bowery (this is according to a newspaper interview) and then moved to London around 1914 to become a tattooist. He was a prolific painter and seems to have given his flash to all of the heavy hitters in the UK during that time, which explains why his stuff is in so many different collections (Hartley, Burchett, Knight, Dusty Rhodes, etc).
Above is one of his larger pieces with the snake dancer, fan dancer, and veiled dancer along with Indian daggers. This is a long piece which once hung in Cecil Rhodes Tattoo parlor in Grimsby, Great Briton.
It now seems all of the work attributed to Charlie (of Malta) Parnis was done from the hand of Alex Gordon. So the research at Lift Trucks, extensive as it was, turned out to be completely wrong. How unusual for us as we are often cited as “frequently wrong but never in doubt”.