Tattoos

The true history of tattoo in the West Tattooing has increased in popularity and prestige over the past several decades, yet mainstream cultural criticism remains divided as to how the practice relates to art. A pervasive stereotype persists of tattooing relating to an underworld of scoundrels, sailors, and ne'er-do-wells, and this is consistently reinforced by popular media. Drawing on extensive new research and unprecedented access to largely unpublished private archives of photographs, art, and ephemera, Matt Lodder offers a new perspective on the history of commercial tattooing in Western culture, beginning even before it emerged as a recognizable profession in the mid-nineteenth century. In the process, he shows that tattoo as an art form has long been both practiced and commissioned by individuals across economic, gender, and class divides. This unprecedented history of tattoo from the eighteenth century to the present stems from more than a decade of research. As museums and institutional archives have not historically collected the objects or archives necessary to undertake a rigorous historical investigation, Lodder has spent years searching for the private archives of collectors and industry insiders, and many of the images here are published for the first time. Richly illustrated and much anticipated, this eye-opening book will satisfy the curiosity of tattoo's many admirers with a nuanced understanding of how tattoos as an art form have evolved through history, who made them and who commissioned them, and why.

The true history of tattoo as both art and profession in the West There is a pervasive stereotype of tattoo culture as relating to an underworld of scoundrels, sailors, and ne’er-do-wells, yet it has existed in the West as a professionalized art practice for centuries. Drawing on extensive new research and unprecedented access to largely unpublished private archives of photographs, art, and ephemera, Matt Lodder offers a new perspective on the history of commercial tattooing in Europe and the United States, beginning even before it emerged as a recognizable profession in the mid-nineteenth century. In the process, he shows that the art of tattoo has long been both practiced and commissioned by individuals across economic, gender, and class divides; he also examines the stylistic trends that have shaped tattoo’s development as an art form over its history. Lodder introduces the many artists and professionals who shaped tattoo history, including early figures like Martin Hildebrandt, the first-known professional tattoo artist in the West; prominent woman artists like Grace Bell and Jessie Knight; mid-twentieth-century icons like Sailor Jerry and Les Skuse and the Bristol Tattoo Club; and contemporary industry stars including Ed Hardy, Davy Jones, and the Leu family. Richly illustrated with rarely published images, this important book is the first to examine the history of tattoo in the west as both a serious profession and an art form.