Milan, and the entire tattoo world, mourns the loss of one of its most unique and brilliant voices. Yesterday, in his beloved Brera, in the heart of Milan, Gian Maurizio Fercioni passed away: artist, tattoo master, set designer, costume designer, and charismatic figure who quietly yet indelibly shaped over fifty years of Italian visual culture.
Fercioni was far more than an avant-garde tattooist: he was a world-builder. “I’ve always been a dandy, with three great passions: sailing, theater, tattooing,” he once told us, speaking of himself. And so he remained: a gentleman with an unmistakable style.
The sea ran through his veins, having entered his soul during his travels through European ports, where he found real, unvarnished life. He carried this experience with him, along with his love for great classics like Melville and his ability to transform brilliant ideas into powerful symbols—flashes of genius that few could share the way he did.
All of this, combined with his deep love for theater, Fercioni expressed expressed in both the micro and the macro: in set designs for major international opera houses, including La Scala in Milan, as well as in the little mermaids, hearts, and skulls he tattooed in simple outlines on those who sat in his chair. He had no interest in labels or your personal career; when you stood before him, his eyes saw straight through you, grasping your essence in an instant.
At a time when tattooing was still a marginal practice, and often misunderstood, he restored it to its dignity as an ancient art—ritual, symbolic, deeply meaningful. He transformed tattooing into a complex visual language capable of conversing with painting, graphic arts, and anthropology. His precise line work, rich with artistic culture, defined a personal style that will remain a reference point for generations of artists.
Through his Queequeg—the studio-museum in Brera where Gian Maurizio had recreated his own small universe—passed tattoo artists, students, curious visitors, intellectuals, actors, and friends. Fercioni welcomed everyone with his ironic wit, and every encounter became a chance for personal growth.
Talking with him meant taking a journey through stories of theater, travels, books, distant tribes, and into the heart of a changing Milan that he could read with remarkable clarity, like a teenage daughter you watch over carefully. In recent years he had continued to work, study, and present tattooing as a total art form, with the same tireless curiosity that had accompanied him throughout his life.
His passing leaves a deep void not only in the tattoo world but in the entire creative community that knew and loved him as artist, teacher, and friend. What remains is his work and his example of rare intelligence and freedom—his way of always being simply Gian Maurizio Fercioni to everyone.
We want to say goodbye with his own words, inviting you to imagine him with his pipe, in his Queequeg, as he was when we did this interview with him years ago—one that captures his extraordinary personality and humanity.
I’ve always been a dandy with three main passions: sailing, theatre, and tattooing.
A passion for books, adventure novels, and sailing. A lifetime spent travelling by sea, stopping off in Europe’s most important ports and then heading to each seaside city’s rough neighborhood, where you could not only get a taste of ‘the real life’ but be saturated by it. He spent time in theatres and tattoo shops, where hygiene was lacking and prostitutes held court. And he’s cultivated one of his biggest passions – the theatre – working as a costume and set designer. This is Gian Maurizio Fercioni’s personal experience, and this is how he presents himself: an eternal asshole, a dandy, and a tattooist who gets excited about life and, like Queequeg, smokes a pipe that is both peace pipe and tomahawk. During our long and wonderful chat he told me all about himself, touching on social media, marketing, and love – offering a truly varied spectrum of himself. This story has no beginning, no end, and no chronological order: it’s a river of emotions that will sweep up anyone who enters his studio/museum in Milan’s Brera quarter. Let us take you to Queequeg – a name that might be familiar to some, but also a place many should visit, according to Fercioni!
Are you on social media?
No, I’m not. Not to be polemic, but it’s a waste of time.
Tell me more about that.
First of all, I think social media has hurt tattooing, because this spreading of ‘things’ means that the people coming to me only seem to be more aware. They tell me: “I’d like this” and show me something they’ve seen on social media, the internet, or whatever. And so I help them understand that loads of people all over the world have that exact, same tattoo. That is, I try to explain to them that a tattoo should be something that represents you personally, for better or worse. Presenting things in such a conformistic way has made tattooing become a petit bourgeois phenomenon. It’s complete conformity and nothing more. It used to be that a person got a tattoo because they’d fallen in or out of love… The tattoo was his or hers alone. It was something that represented the person in a dreamlike state of goodness. I’ve spent time in the shops of the old tattooists, and I’ll always remember how Hoffman would say that a tattooist has the precise obligation to bring a person’s nightmares and loves back to life on their skin, as if it was all already there, so the tattooist’s task is just to help it emerge onto the skin. It was a philosophical world full of poetic, purely handcrafted work. Not like today…
And how is it, today?
It cracks me up to see this fad of talking about and invoking ‘artists’. ‘Artists?’ Really? What kind of artist? It’s the general public who decides whether you are an artist or not. It’s like people who want to be referred to as a count or a nobleman, or be called ‘doctor’… These are all names used by ass lickers.
Yet some people like to be referred to with these kinds of terms, because they don’t realize that they are conformists.
-FUCK THE WORLD –
In the past, tattooing really meant fuck the world. Not like today, when a person doesn’t even know what tattooing is, and then proceeds to tattoo his hands, neck, and face just to make an impression… Just think, I learned about lettering on the ass in England because it’s normal there, especially for the Scottish – and they’ll show it right in front of the queen, too -. If there’s a group photo they’ll lift their kilts and show their ‘fuck the world’ lettering. When we were doing regattas and managed to pass a boat leeward – a difficult task because when you pass leeward, the boat that’s windward sails faster – you’d see everyone with their asses out in the open air. At the time, mine didn’t have any tattoos on it, but later I really let loose and took care of that! I got Keep Calm: Churchill’s famous sentence “keep calm and carry on”, which he said at the start of the second World War when London was being bombarded. English and Scottish culture was so very strong in tattooing and in terms of finding mottos. They were transgressive and fun and the letterings were very personal. People definitely did not all write the same things, like they do today! Tattooing was transgression, you see, and certainly not conformity!
Do the people who come to you understand this?
Yeah, I hope I’m able to make them more aware, to help them focus on discovering what tattooing really means to them. Obviously some advice from me helps for sure, but I do tattooing with my own culture and sensitivity, in my own handcrafted, careful, and correct way, with a touch of poetry as well. I really love outlines, they are my favorite feature.
Why outlines?
Because they’re like a person’s calligraphy: you can tell if a person is hysterical, what he or she is feeling, etc. from their writing. For me, outlines have to have loads of energy. And energy in a well-made tattoo – even if it’s small – needs to have some grit. A mermaid that’s a centimeter and a half can still express something, a wish. It can become more important and powerful than a full back. I get excited when I see tattoos that speak to me. Let me tell you a story: once I was in the Naples train station and there was a man lying on the sidewalk. I could see part of a tattoo from under his shirtsleeve: a dagger and snake and the lettering ‘Carmela I hate you.’ It was so clear why this poor guy was in that state. A tattoo like that creates a brilliant feeling inside when you see one. I was a jury member at the first convention organized by Tin Tin, in Paris. A guy presented himself to us: his body was amazing, he was an ex-jailman, and he had a Dali’ Christ – the one suspended in air with huge spikes – done by hand on his back. The level of grit was incredible. I was amazed. He didn’t win though, oh no, they decided to let someone with a perfect tiger on his leg win. You see, that’s when things started to go downhill for tattooing…
DON FELIX
I was lucky to have met Don Felix, an amazing tattooist, and the way we connected was truly poetic. At first he was a bit diffident towards me because I was dressed in the exact opposite way from him: he was a real hippy, while I looked like a real dandy. If you put a real hippy and a real dandy together the results are usually nil! And yet we still had a lot of things in common. I remember once we went to their place and showed up with a beautiful bouquet of roses. He immediately took out the greenery because it made him anxious, and then we decided to listen to some music together. We put on a record with the sounds of different motorcycles and we were both able to recognize them all! We had different appearances, but the same substance: we were both bikers, wanderers who were used to travelling – he’d even lived in Goa – and we both maintained our culture. You could give him anything and he’d be able to tattoo it. Like a good hippy, he could fix both a bike and a tattoo machine. He belonged to a generation of tattooists who were far from the fashionable crowd – there was him, Jocks, Hoffmann… they were the pioneers and civil world of modern tattooing. He’d gotten a rotary tattoo machine from Jocks, just like me. These were big personalities who shared so much together; there were no secrets, they were generous with this art form. And they established trusting relationships with the people they tattooed, they knew how to create the right atmosphere. I had the great pleasure to host Paulo Sulu’ape in my home, shortly before his wife killed him. We chatted a lot about the vibes which drive tattooing. And when he tattooed me I was able to experience the Samoan tattooing tradition. There needs to be a perfect vibe between a tattooist and the person getting tattooed: the two are like the gears of a car that fit together: one pulls the skin then taps it, and the person getting the tattoo just breathes.
Breathes… in what way?
I was taught that while you’re getting tattooed you should repeat two syllables: PU and KA. PU helps contract the belly and KA helps you relax and let go. This ‘breathing’ method is done in unison, the same rhythm is followed and you don’t suffer this way. Well, at the beginning you do, but then you enter into a relaxed state, you feel your skin being pulled but it doesn’t hurt. You feel like you’re being rocked. I fell asleep. I recommend the same thing, but with my style.
Which is…?
I mean, to make a good tattoo, you the tattooist have to be positive, as does the person beneath you. The result will benefit your soul and you’ll never regret such aesthetic gratification. If contrasts exist, then there’s something that is out of sync. And I also always say this, especially to women: you see, making a tattoo is like fucking. It takes two people to fuck: you should find your joy, as should he. When both people are able to do that, then you are making love. Because otherwise it’s like masturbating. And so the tattoo remains a hand job. Certain tattoos end up as ‘segate’ (hand jobs), as they say in Tuscany where I come from. Can those types of tattoos represent you? A good number of tattoos that you see around might be technically glossy but they lack substance. How can a well-done stencil represent you? It has no grit or soul. I believe there are tattoos which describe love much better than any words can.
MARSEILLES
…I got shot in Marseilles because of the way I dressed. The local racket thought I was sent by the Italian mafia to steal its prostitution ring. I was actually there to work in the theatre, to sail (I was waiting for a boat so I could head north) and to tattoo. I tattooed at Alain’s, and I tattooed all the prostitutes, what fun lowlife they were. I loved to tattoo them. I tattooed them because Alain didn’t want to be “impolite” to his wife, whom he was obsessed with. He had an incredible shop… a little chenille rug like the ones from Cairo, a simple office desk, a green sofa that had caved in, and green carpeting. There was an archway which divided the workspace from the kitchen. The ritual was that when you arrived you would find him either at the door or inside, and he’d take the little rug and beat it outside, then he’d put it on the desk, lay down a sheet of newspaper and that was his table. Inkpot, ink – and he was ready to work. He made some incredible mistakes on people, but that was a time when antibodies seemed to be much stronger. I lived in the prostitute’s neighborhood and I felt great. You can’t find a cleaner woman than a prostitute. I knew all of them, in Hamburg. There was one who’d wear a corset with garters, she was fifty years old (photo of woman). She was always washing herself in the bidet, and then would fling the water out the window or use it to water the flowers. A lot of them were Italian, but there were also Greek and Turkish women. That was the first time I saw the Venetian prostitutes’ old social tattoo: panties and gloves. Symbols of detachment from men. And this concept remained in common language: shall we do it with gloves, or without? A guy my age had a lot of fun back then. I’ve had a lot of fun in my life in general, and I like to think that I could be an example. I’d like to be someone that young folks look up to. I’d like to raise their awareness, because the more you know, the more you want to know. Tattooists shouldn’t go to those stupid schools, but instead listen to themselves, and to each other.
THEATRE
So why did you start sailing?
I left Milan when I was 17 because I was obsessed with sailing. I knew some people in Viareggio (Tuscany) who worked as brokers; they arranged the transfer of boats – that had been built in the northern shipyards – to the Mediterranean, because Italians were amazing cabinet makers. So my job was to transfer the boats. I would sail with very little: just a hammock to sleep in and an electric motor I could attach to the axle whenever I needed to do a tricky maneuver, because the boats’ motors were new and sealed off. We’d set sail from Oslo, Norway, go through the English Channel, the Gulf of Lion and enter the Mediterranean strait. You can see some memories of those places in my own tattoo collection. I would get a tattoo in every port. When I set off from Hamburg I’d arrive in Marseille and look for a boat there to take away. I’d put my feet on dry land for awhile and do theatre and make tattoos. I worked as a set and costume designer.
When was that?
I started in 1970, after finishing my studies at Brera Academy. My first show was at the Scala, then I worked at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, and I was one of the founders of Teatro Franco Parenti. Then I started working with the most prominent prose and opera theatres in Europe, and luckily I continue to do so.
THE “MILL”
…Before Hoffman died he wanted to give me the mill.
The mill?
Yeah, it was a machine, like the vending machines at the movies, it ground up the powders until they became super-fine. So I learned how to do that myself, and I still use it. I’ve always prepared my colors by myself. Usually the mixture consists of glycerol, distilled water, and pigment. I have a doctor friend who takes care of me. I check to see if they react, to see what they do. Let me tell you, there are only four basic colors: yellow, blue, red, and black. Today people also use white because it has a good fixative, whereas in the past nothing remained on the skin.
Everything else is the market, a question of ‘marketing’ – to use a term currently used today. The same is true for tattoo machines: there used to be just one, revered machine, and folks would only change the needles and tip. I started out building machines; my first one was given to me by Jocks, it was a rotary, the oldest machine ever made. Folks would even make tattoo machines in jail. It cracks me up how everybody goes crazy for the rotary today, all that really old stuff. I still make changes to all my machines by myself: long strokes with the needle going in and out so much it hurts like crazy. The stroke that you see these days is always the same. This is a world that is becoming demoralized as we speak. I still enjoy tatooing though, because my clients are always wonderful, and the old folks are still around, as well as people who have turned a cold shoulder to all the social hype. I have a friend… now that he’s tattooed, he’s become the star of Riccione port, because he’s ‘real’. We’re talking about people who have experienced a lot in life.
CONVENTIONS
…Everything is marketing. Used to be, a good tattooist wouldn’t buy machines but would barter for them. I’m talking about the late 70s, early 80s. Ah, the memories: conventions organized by Miky Sharpz and Lionel Tichner, close to Birgmingham… the Kenilworth convention was where those two beat each other up because they’d both made machines, but in the end they agreed on not selling them. Then some tattooists went to Miki to ask him to sell them, and he did – what a mess. It was so much fun! Kind of like the conventions I organized in Milan, in ’86, when 300 people broke out into a brawl in a theatre in Porta Romana. There were punks, skinheads, squatters… it was a total free for all. Those were the people who were getting tattoos, at the time. I was working in my old shop in Via Formentini, and the police would stop by just about every other day. But my shop was great, everybody liked it, because you felt like you were in a boat. So I told this dark crowd all about the convention: there were punks, skinheads, alternative groups and squatters: an explosive mix. In fact there was an explosion on the second day, due to a spark which went off to start the dancing. The theatre was destroyed. I think it was the only time in the history of tattooing that an organizer broke even! Conventions were done differently back then. You’d go to socialize, not like now when people don’t even look at one another in the face… You’d see people with spider webs on their heads which really did have a meaning. But now there are a bunch of chickenshits who get a spider web tattoo just to make an impression.
MOBY DICK AND WOMEN
My passions have always followed me: theatre, tattoos and my sailboat – my lovely jewel – a fantastic vessel. And I’m still the same dandy as before. I’ve always looked like an asshole. Yeah, I am an asshole, it’s a role that I like because it’s entertaining. The fact that I’m an asshole isn’t hidden behind any appearances. It’s how Melville explains in Moby Dick: never fall for appearances.
When does he say that?
When the Maori prince Queequeg (this is the character who inspired me for my shop, I love him like crazy) arrives in Nantucket, he has run away from home because he wants to explore the world. He can’t find any ships, so he is taken in by an innkeeper who tells him that if he wants a place to sleep he can have one. When Queequeg enters the room, he terrifies the person there – Ishmael – because he’s tattooed all over, is smoking a pipe, and that image remains stuck in your mind… But then Queequeg turns out to be the best character in the book. Did you know that in some Native American tribes the pipe is a symbol of both a tomahawk and the peace pipe? What a novel… and to think that there are people who cite the big white whale without ever having read the book. Ignorance and pretense.
These are things that you learn only if you read, because culture is like love. It’s something you should try to understand deeply. There are people who appropriate the white whale without having read Mody Dick. I like to read old books, and re-read them again and again: Melville, Stevenson… I especially like books about social customs and intrigues. In my own life I feel very close to Stevenson and his Dr. Jeckyll and Mr Hyde. I wrote a comedy called Dr. Jeckyll and Miss Hyde: I mean, any sincere man will admit he has dreamt of being a woman many times. I grew up in a family full of wonderful women, with a lot of irony. They were extremely elegant. I’ve always been fascinated by women. My grandfather had a very prominent, high fashion tailor in Milan for twenty years, from the 50s to the 70s. Maybe that’s where my love for women comes from, along with my work as a theatre costume designer, and my appreciation for elegance.
Can you tell me something about all these mementos here in your shop?
This is a memento that I found in India: an undershirt with some tattoo symbols. According to the English, these symbols made soldiers of the royal army invincible. Do you know what those lowlifes did? They’d make the soldiers put on these undershirts, then shot at them with a gun loaded with blanks… so those poor soldiers went to fight, convinced they were immortal. So many strange things… they make up the history of tattooing. For example, I had my back tattooed with the same tattoos as Otzi, and the sciatic pain in my right leg went away. Otzi’s tattoos were therapeutic, and my doctor friend explained to me that it’s true: it’s the same thing. Anthropologists are starting to become interested in these strange things now. For example, the Ainu people had ties with the Haida people: women in both cultures tattooed their mouths blue because they believed this would keep the devil from entering. This common custom is linked to the fact that they were nomads, and moved from Russia to Canada.
Is there any part of the world that fascinates you the most?
Hmm.. no, I wouldn’t say so. Luisa (Luisa Fercione, Gian Maurizio’s wife, Ed.) is currently doing research on Brazilian mummies, and has some really amazing connections in Japan.
And this is your legendary work apron…
I’ve got two of them, one is really heavy. This is just a bunch of stupid stuff linked to biking, boxing, tattooing, sea stuff, my passions… stuff I found during my travels around the world, or received as gifts. This is a human bone. Hey, have you seen the bathroom? Let me show you my collection of old photos, of when I tattooed the prostitutes in Marseilles: look at this one, she got a tattoo of panties embroidered with little dicks. I was pretty crude back then. I also did piercing, I’d do it in the shop, standing up. A steady hand with no emotion. It was another world, no gloves, nothing… The prostitutes were a wonderful universe to experience, and I have to say that women always win. What amazing characters…
WHAT A DISASTER
And then there was all the sailors’ tattoo lingo.
If you had a tattoo of two male swallows, it meant you were gay and had been buggered for the first time. If you had a male and female swallow then it meant you had settled down, and if you had two female sparrows then you were a pig. Everybody would come with me when we went ashore because I knew where to go. One day a pathetic roughneck shows up and tells me that he wants a classic tattoo. He tells me that he already has a tattoo, and shows me two male sparrows. And so I say that he’s gay. But he didn’t know anything about the old tattoo lingo. The real tattoo lingo! The same thing was true for pin-up girls. The old sailors who’d never show their tattoos would find themselves having to show the nude pin-up when they played cards. The ones that swayed their hips when the sailors moved their arms were the good ones. There was also a classic one that I did for the real ‘fans’: when they moved their arm the pin-up would get into the doggy-style position. And for more refined folks there’d be a little cloud or moon behind the pin-up’s shoulders. It seemed like something polite and romantic, but actually when you looked at it while the guy’s arm was moving, the pin-up looked like she was farting! This is stuff that the young folks just don’t know about. They’re not interested. Today, tattooing is just a way to create stars. What a disaster…
And then he left… he closed the door of his shop, and, smoking his pipe, smiled at his beloved Milan.
