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 Drawing on extensive new research and unprecedented access to largely unpublished private archives of photographs, art, and ephemera, Matt Lodder offers a new perspective on the history of commercial tattooing in Western culture, beginning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.