Articles by author
Pepe & Mina Von B
34 articles
Alessandro Negrini (a.k.a. Pepe) has been tattooing since 1996, opening his first studio in Viareggio in 2001, and has gone on to establish the new "Elctric Tattooing Viareggio" in 2017. He has returned to painting in 2014, and to watercolour in particular, which he had abandoned following his studies at Belle Arti to devote himself entirely to the art of tattoos. Romina Bicicchi (a.k.a. Mina Von B) is a professional editor/translator and a philosophical writer. She graduated in Philosophy at the University of Pisa and in Publishing at the University of Florence. She is the author of Filosofia 3 (2008), Freud (2009), Nietzsche (2009), Vivere con filosofia (2010), Tattoo Portraits (2015), Il divino giullare: un genio di nome Fo (2016).
Tattooing A to Z #35: Samuel O’Reilly
In 1891 Samuel O’Reilly revolutionized tattooing with his invention of the electric tattoo machine. He opened a tattoo studio at 11 Chatham Square, in the Chinatown area of the Bowery,…
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Tattooing A to Z #34: Lee Roy Minugh
Lee Roy Minugh was a tattooist, Baptist Preacher and Mason who made his name in the tattoo business during the 1950’s at the Pike, where he also worked with the…
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Tattooing A to Z #33: Pat Martynuik “The Picture Machine”
Pat was a native of Vancouver, Canada. He started tattooing as a hobby, picking up pointers from the resident Vancouver tattooist Doc Forbes and his friend of many years, Huck…
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Tattooing A to Z #32: Mike Malone
Mike Malone led one of those lives that you read about in books. Mike was born in California and after high school he studied ceramics, learned carpentry, became a licensed…
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Tattooing A to Z #31: Sutherland Macdonald
Sutherland Macdonald was considered by many to be one of the greatest artists in the history of tattooing. It is said that his first exposure to tattooing was in the…
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Tattooing A to Z #29: Jock Liddell “Tattoo Jock”
Jock Liddel, better known as “Tattoo Jock”, first began tattooing in his native Scotland at a time when there were only a couple of tattoo artists working there – with…
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Tattooing A to Z #28: Felix Leu “Don Feliz”
In 1978 Felix Leu started his tattooing career at “Jocks Tattoo Studio” in Kings Cross, London, England. Felix went on to recall that it was after a chance meeting with…
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Tattooing A to Z #27: Owen Jensen
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…
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Mildred Hull “Millie”: The Queen of Bowery
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…
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Tattooing A to Z #25: Herbert Hoffmann
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…
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Tattooing A to Z #24: Don Ed Hardy
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…
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Tattooing A to Z #23: Freddie Grossman “CONEY Island Freddie”
“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…
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Tattooing A to Z #22: Ole Hansen “King’s Tattooer” / “Tattoo-Ole”
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…
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Tattooing A to Z #21: William Grimshaw
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…
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Tattooing A to Z #20: Bert Grimm
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,…
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Tattooing A to Z #19: Doc Forest
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…
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Tattooing A to Z #18: Doc Forbes
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…
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Tattooing A to Z #17: Maurizio Fiorini
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…
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Tattooing A to Z #16: Gian Maurizio Fercioni
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”…
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Tattooing A To Z #15: Chuck Eldridge
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…
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Tattooing A To Z #14: Amund Dietzel “Master in Milwaukee”
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…
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Tattooing A to Z #13: Thom DeVita
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…
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Tattooing A to Z #12: Peter De Haan – Tattoo Peter
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…
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Tattooing A to Z #11: Albert Cornelissen
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…
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