This is Stoney St Clair’s third and final stage of tattooing. He started out doing the classic tattoo imagery, progressing along to a transitional drawing style like this cover up image seen below. This is Stoney St Clair’s third and final stage of tattooing. He started out doing the classic tattoo imagery, progressing along to…
Prof Frank Howard ran away at an early age and came back from being at sea literally covered in tattoos. Here is an old cabinet card from Barnum’s circus where he traveled for many years. The following is from Bmezine.com Encyclopedia: “Annie Howard was a tattooed lady who exhibited with her husband, Frank Howard, in…
Once owned by Mike Malone, this was possibly Jerry’s last piece. A classic blended with Japanese design elements. We’ve never seen the dragon used this way before, it’s usually a damsel in distress. Wonder what Jerry was saying? Lightning bolts, sky in turmoil, the sea thrashing with sharks. The Dragon’s not giving up in this…
Scottish artist Jessica Harrison has her own exhibition FLASH. Harrison uses porcelain figurines that represent 19th century women. Interestingly enough women during that time who were considered ‘classy’ and ‘elegant’ often had these intense tattoos. Later on women in carnivals began to get them and the social value and tradition of women getting tattooed decreased significantly. It became…
We love Dainty Dotty and we feel she loved us. Just look at that smile. Through exhaustive research we believe that Dotty was indeed the Fat Lady sitting next to Major Mite in this famous story about the Rubber Man and Mae, the Tattooed Lady. Herewith and paraphrasing Albert Parry’s, 1933 ” Tattoo, Secrets…
America’s Tattoo Master, Mr. Samuel F. O’Reilly, trained Ed Smith along with Charles Wagner in the 20’s and 30’s on the Bowery in New York City. Bums, empty bottles, and the elevated train ran the streets back then. We have all seen photos of tattooed people but not too many self-portraits of the tattoo artist…
Most early tattoo artists were attracted to the ancient craft of tattoo artistry because of a burning desire to express their creative artistic ability. The appeal of freedom of an unencumbered profession. They were their own boss, answering to no one. They were like a close-knit family drawn together by an unorthodox and vagabond way…
“If someone asked me, ‘What’s your problem?’ I’d have to say, ‘skin.’” – Andy Warhol Eighty Eight degrees inside on a sub zero-freezing night outside – which was good. An abundance of arms necks legs with multicolored designs of dragons skulls clowns snakes pin up girls and geometric patterns floated around the space. Mostly…
Here’s Dotty, the tattoo artist. We have always been fascinated with the smiling big woman in the old photos. One of her designs depicted a woman with butterfly wings floating as if in liberation. She also had her day with the classic “Put her ol’ foot through me heart, matey” tattoo image. Could this have been in…
The Tattoo artists are rolling in their graves A few decades ago, tattoos used to be a sign you were a degenerate. They used to be reserved for people in gangs or bikers. Sure, there was the acceptable army or navy tattoo, or maybe that one crazy picture you got on your back that one…
