Pepe & Mina Von B

Owen Jensen was born in Pleasant Grove, Utah. As a young man he worked in the railroad shop in Ogden, Utah. In 1911 he saw the “Buffalo Bill Wild West…

Mildred Hull, the “Queen of the Bowery”, was born in 1897 and was a tattooed lady and a tattoo artist. Mildred started out her career in the cir-cus as a…

Herbert Hoffmann was born in Freienwalde in Pommern, on December 19, 1919. He was a tattoo artist and a photographer. His photographs of tattooed people across Germany resulted in a…

Don Ed Hardy is an American artist, perhaps the most famous artist in the world of tattoo. He is best known for his tattoo work, his art and his eponymous…

“Coney Island Freddie” Grossman, born in 1934, is one of the famous old New York style tattoo artists. He got his name from the years he spent tattooing at New…

Born in 1925 and raised as an orphan, Ole Hansen was a Danish tattooist who worked in the middle of the twentieth century. Ole is best known as “Tattoo-Ole”, the…

William Grimshaw was a tattoo artist who apparently operated in the Norfolk, Virginia area, during the 1940s and 50s. Little is known of him, including which Grimshaw family line he…

Bert Grimm was born in a little town near Portland, Oregon, on February 8, 1900. He started hanging around tattoo shops when he was about 11 or 12 years old,…

Born Ove Skög, Doc Forest’s career as a tattoo artist began at sea. He was a sailor for seven years in the sixties, during the glory years of the Swedish…

Doc Forbes was a pioneer of Canadian tattooing, he was born in 1900 and died on Lyle Tuttle’s birthday, on October 10, 1977. He was well known for his classic…

Maurizio Fiorini was born in 1928, in Montelupo Fiorentino, a small town not far from the city of art and crib of the Renaissance: Florence. He felt in love with…

Gian Maurizio Fercioni was born in Milano, Italy, on December 19, 1946. He studied at the art school and took his degree in 1970 at the “Accademia di Belle Arti”…

C.W. Eldridge, or Chuck, as his friends know him, is the owner of the “Tattoo Archiv”” in Berkeley, California. Chuck is the keeper of the secrets, the guard of the…

Known as the “Master in Milwaukee”, Amund Dietzel was born in Kristiania, Norway, in 1891. When he began in 1907, tattooing was an art form that existed on the periphery…

Thom DeVita has been one of the most unique American tattooers and artists. A Manhattan native, born 1932, Thom DeVita showed at open-air art fairs in Washington Square Park in…

This right-handed tattooist, who died on Saint Patrick’s Day 1984, was listed in the book Art, Sex, Symbol as “Holland’s Premier Artist” and one of the greatest old school tattoo…

Albert Cornelissen was born in 1913 and tattooed in Rotterdam, Holland. He was the first tattooist in the Netherlands, after the Second World War. Katendrecht, where he was located, is…

Charles “Cash” Cooper: “Professor” – “Cash the Rash” Charles “Cash” Cooper was born in 1927, and he was tattooing at Piccadilly Circus in the 1950s and 1960s in what has…

Before Ed Hardy and Sailor Jerry, there were a couple of guys who are considered the forefathers of American Tattooing: August “Cap” Coleman and Franklin Paul Rogers. When you trace…

Bruno Coccioli is considered the father of French tattooing. Pioneer of the body art, Bruno was the first professional tattooist in France, and his professional name is simply “Bruno”. He…

Dennis Cockell was born in 1948 in Worcester, England. He owned one of the most famous tattoo studios in London, and tattooed many famous people in his 265-A Finchley Road…

Good Time Charlie is the owner of the “Good Time Charlie’s End of the Trail Tattoo” shop in Modesto, California, opened in 1987. Godfather of black and gray fine-line tattooing,…

George “Professor” Burchett (also styled the “King of Tattooists”) was born George Burchett-Davis on August 23, 1872, in the English seaside town of Brighton, East Sussex and became one of…