Articles by author
Pepe & Mina Von B
49 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).
Tattoo Portraits: Gus+Maud Wagner “Wagners Tattooists”
August “Gus” Wagner was a tattoo artist and performer. “World’s Champion Hand Tattoo Artist and Tattooed Man”, was one of the most exuberant figures in the history of American popular…
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Tattoo portraits: Charlie Wagner
Charlie Wagner is one of America’s great tattoo legends and he tattooed in New York City from the 1890s until his death in 1953. Working on the Bowery in lower…
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Tattoo portraits: Darwin “Huck” Spaulding
Born on December 5, 1928, Darwin “Huck” Spaulding, lived in the Voorheesville area, NY, for many years. He was a veteran of the US Merchant Marines and the US Army,…
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Janet Field & Bill Skuse “Bill & Rusty Skuse”
Born in Janet Field on December 20, 1943, Rusty Skuse was nicknamed that way because of her hair coloring, and from 1970 to 1990 she retained the “Guinness World Record”…
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Tattoo portraits: Les Skuse
Born in 1912, Les Skuse, lived and died in the port town of Bristol, England. He became the town’s most famous tattoo expert and was almost as well known on…
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Tattoo portraits: Henk Schiffmacher “Hanky Panky”
Hendrikus Johannes Everhardus “Henk” Schiffmacher is a tattoo artist, painter, writer, collector, world traveler. Born in 1952 in Harderwijk and grown up in a catholic butcher’s family, Schiffmacher displayed talent…
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Tattoo portraits: Leonard “Stoney” St. Clair
Mister St. Clair was born 1912 in Bluefield, West Virginia. Stoney tattooed out of a wheelchair, a “struggle-buggy” as he called it. He had been in that chair for all…
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Tattoo portraits: Bob Shaw
Bob Shaw was a tattooist who, at the age of sixteen, had a full set of sleeves from Bert Grimm. Bob learned the art of tattooing from Bert, after getting…
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Tattoo portraits: Paul Rogers
Paul Rogers was born in 1905, in North Carolina. He spent much of his childhood moving from one cotton town to the next, as the family sought employment in the…
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Tattoo portraits: Bev Robinson “Cindy Ray”
The Story of a Tattooed Girl was the title of Cindy Ray’s first book. Back in the 60’s this was big news: a tattooed woman finally published her story about…
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Tattoo portraits: Cliff Raven
Cliff Raven Ingram was born in a little town outside Chicago on August 24, 1932. He was one of a handful of tattoo artists (along with Sailor Jerry Collins and…
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Tattoo portraits: Tony Polito
Tony Polito is a Brooklyn tattooer that has been tattooing since 1959. Tony was at one point during the early 70’s, the only operating tattooer in all of NYC. For…
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Tattoo portraits: Zeke Owen “Tattoo Zeke”
Zeke Owen, or, as he is better known, “Tattoo Zeke”, was born in 1940 and was the first person to re-open tattooing in Guam, since his uncle, Ernie Sutton, opened…
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Tattoo portraits: 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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Tattoo portraits: 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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Tattoo portraits: 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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Tattoo portraits: 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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Tattoo portraits: 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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Tattoo portraits: 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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Tattoo portraits: 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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Tattoo portraits: 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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