Jan
A Tattoo Journey
Researched & Written by Carmen Nyssen
The ‘Tattoo Journey’ ahead is a sampling of the early twentieth-century tattoo artist travels that so significantly shaped the craft and trade of tattooing. In an era when sailing vessels were the only mode of global transport, it was the sea that called to the most daring of tattoo adventurers. Whether full-fledged sailors or mere passengers, these wayfaring tattooers were a hardy, lustful breed, who weathered treacherous storms, cramped quarters, unsanitary conditions, and poor diets, all in the name of exploring the world and practicing their craft in diverse lands. During lulls in maritime hauls, they pricked the skin of fellow seaman, and upon disembarking, they etched the hides of carousers in exotic seaports—where they often, too, indulged in the customary debauchery of brothels, gambling houses, and saloons, and sought out the local tattooers.
In the course of these wild journeys—in which less savory elements converged with the allure of an ancient art form—tattooers picked up new techniques, designs, and tools, from a varied lot of practitioners, while also leaving behind knowledge of their own tattooing style and equipment. Even the ones who finally settled in a permanent spot continued making exchanges with seafaring and land-itinerant tattooers, or those on the circus, carnival, and dime museum circuit with tattoo traditions unique to their niche. From sea to land, and land to sea, confluences in tattoo art lapped the world over and manifested in innovative ways, pushing tattooing to new levels and imbuing it with a distinct richness unparalleled in any other trade/craft.
“Sailor” Larry Leuthold (1901-1961):
Though a tattooer best known for his beautiful body suit executed by Bert Grimm in the 1930s, Indiana-born Larry Leuthold got his first etchings during his hitch with the Navy. In 1920, the fittingly monikered “Sailor Larry” was stationed at the U.S. Naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, where he was inked by one of numerous well-traveled tattooers set up along Main Street. Though it’s not clear who did him the honor, of the lot, he was possibly decorated by American-born August “Cap” Coleman, Andy Stuertz, or Lenora Platt; Czech-born Charlie Barrs; Australian-born Harry Lawson; British natives John A. Walker, William Fowkes, or Bert Thompson—or even longstanding Norfolk tattoo artist Elmer Getchell.
Elmer Ellsworth Getchell (1863-1940):
Originally a Boston tattoo artist, then a New York City practitioner for a few years around the Spanish American War, “Electric” Elmer Getchell spent the better part of his post-New York days (after 1904) in Norfolk, tattooing slews of sailors on-leave from the local Naval base.
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Getchell was also a steamboat captain, and throughout his career, trekked the Eastern seaboard, where he operated shops in several port cities. Curiously, despite stints in America only, Getchell’s tattooing had taken on a worldlier look by the early 1900s, before he settled in Norfolk. Period photos of his tattooed creations reveal a detailed and fine-lined style usually associated with English tattooers.
Perhaps a few itinerant friends lent a hand. London-born Sidney Wright might have been one influence, according to writing on a 1902 passenger manifest, which states “S.B. Wright NY Bowery/electric tattooist” and what appears to be “Prof. Getchell” underneath. Wright traveled to and from England often in his early career.
James Wilson (1870-1939):
Another possible English influence on Elmer Getchell was Jim Wilson, his partner in a 1915 Norfolk tattoo shop-shooting gallery, at 216 Avon Street (This was before the bulk of tattooers had set up on Main Street during WWI). Wilson was a Lincolnshire, England native and protégé of premier London tattoo artist Tom Riley (also a visitor to New York City in 1901). He is best remembered for his 1920s days on Brooklyn’s Sands Street, where he set up for a while after leaving Norfolk.
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Sands Street at the time was home to two other native British tattooers—Bill Donnelly, another alleged student of Tom Riley, and Jack Stuart Gavett. It’s not clear who mentored London-born Gavett, a professional cyclist turned tattooer. But, interestingly, he had the name “Horitoyo” etched on his person.
Horitoyo was the Japanese master who had worked with Riley in London in the late 1890s, and afterward traveled to New York, where he tattooed with Samuel O’Reilly on the Bowery, then at his own shops at 233 Sands Street and several other locations, before heading to the West Coast. (See more of Horichiyo’s history at Buzzworthy Tattoo History article: The Loryeas: A Jewish Immigrant Family’s Curious Connections With Tattooing).
James E. Malcom (1885-1961):
Among the many New York Bowery tattooers, you would have once found James E. Malcom tattooing at 257 Bowery, c. 1913-14. After being covered from head-to-toe by famous New York tattoo artist Charlie Wagner c.1908, he couldn’t have been further away from his rural upbringing on his father’s Missouri farm. Malcom exhibited as a tattooed attraction with his newly adorned body suit on Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, then various other carnivals, before setting up shop on the Bowery.
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Extending his travels in 1914, Malcom embarked on an exciting journey as a seaman aboard the Zieten, which landed him in the rough-and-tumble seaside city of Sydney, Australia on the 8th of February. By the 22nd of February 1914, he had already set up his tattoo business at 176a George street under the imported name ‘New York Tattooing Studio.’ For some years after, he was a fixture in Sydney. He married there, had a daughter, and settled into tattooing on the well-trafficked, raucous George Street stretch—a long-time hub for tattoo artists.
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‘New York Tattooing Studio’ was a short walk from Circular Quay in Sydney’s bustling harbor. By the 1910s, the Quay was mainly a dock for ferries and large passenger vessels, but 100 years prior it had been the offloading spot for convicts banished to Australia and sentenced to hard labor, and it was still a rough place. The busy port, as well as the sailor’s home down the street at 108 George Street, and the nearby Sydney Naval base, brought all walks of life to the area—no doubt visiting tattoo artists, and also a fair share of troublemakers.
One evening, in January 1927, whilst tattooing a sailor named Jamieson of the H.M.A.S. Sydney, Malcom was assaulted. Three men chased a man into Malcom’s premises and began to attack him. When he intervened to break up the scuffle, the assailants turned on him, inflicting serious injury, including a fractured skull that put him the hospital for a week. Perhaps realizing the risks of raising a daughter in this wayward environment, eight months after the incident, Malcom escorted his daughter Jeanne to the U.S. and sent her to live with his sister in Missouri. Eventually, he returned as well.
John Walter Bennell (1875-1937):
When James Malcom arrived in Australia in 1914, John Walter Bennell was already a prominent figure in Sydney, having tattooed there for at least 13 years. His first directory listing, in 1901, advertised him at 174b George Street. Bennell, a native of Victoria who spent most of his life in Sydney, interacted with a diversity of tattooers in the course of his career. In a 1908 newspaper interview, he said that he first learnt tattooing by making “The acquaintance of a Japanese exponent of the art,” and after only 6 months tuition, the two set up together in business at George Street north.
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Evidence suggests that Bennell was also friends with legendary globetrotting tattooer Gus Wagner. Various newspaper articles indicate that Australia was a frequent landing spot for Gus at the turn of the century. And Gus was featured in the same 1908 newspaper article about Bennell (see above image).
Tattooed Man “Ted Frisco” & William Henry Cecil Ryan (1865-1923):
While perhaps not on par with globetrotter Gus Wagner, as noted in an 1898 dime museum pamphlet, Dublin-born tattooed attraction “Ted Frisco” lived a colorful life of travel.
The “history” in Ted Frisco, The Tattooed Man reads more like fiction than actual fact—a sideshow pitch to draw a crowd—but it mentions that Ted grew up in Victoria, Australia and that some of his tattooing, before he was fully covered, was done when he was a sailor, in Japan and at a ‘Dime Museum’ on the New York Bowery.
According to numerous notices in show trade publication The Era, once Frisco became a tattooed man, he exhibited around the U.K on the dime museum circuit. Though his pitch history states that he had quit life at sea for this new calling, his zeal for adventure eventually won over again. A June 8, 1903 Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper article made quite an ado about Ted Frisco the tattooed man’s arrival in the U.S. as a seaman aboard the Russian Ship Triton:
“There is hardly a square inch of skin that is not decorated in a most artistic manner. On his breast is an American eagle hovering over a nest of young eaglets and for a stomacher he wears the picture of a full sail rigged clipper shop under sail. Covering the major part of his back is the life of Christ, representing Him nailed a cross between two malefactors.”
Through such travels, Ted Frisco flaunted his tattoo artist’s work on a much grander stage than his initial role of tattooed attraction.
Frisco’s pitch pamphlet relays that he met Australian-born William Henry Cecil Ryan, the artist behind his tattoos, during a stopover in Liverpool; he was so “impressed by [Ryan’s] coloured work,” he “gave up the sea, and entered into a contract.” As noted on the rear page advertisement for “Professor W.H.C. Ryan, Artistic Tattooer,” in 1898, would-be tattooees could patronize Ryan, and presumably view Frisco’s decorated body, at ‘Crouch’s Wonderland’ at 80 Lime street in Liverpool.
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Ryan, who had made his way to Liverpool sometime before the mid-1890s, was possibly a world wanderer himself in earlier years. At least, it was stated in Frisco’s pitch that he possessed drawings by Japanese master Hori Chiyo, purchased directly from the artist himself. In any case, Ryan was mostly known as a U.K. a tattooer-photographer after the 1890s, and spent many years working in seaside cities, such as Hull and Bridlington, where he undoubtedly interacted with a variety of seafaring tattooers.
Henry Charles Swift (1880-1929):
Sydney was quite a hub for travelling tattooers in the early half of the twentieth century. Bringing his craft to Australian shores was Scottish-born Henry Charles Swift (aka Henri). Prior to his time in Sydney, he had tattooed at 88 Queen street in Leamington Spa, England in 1907, and then 165 Cuba Street in Wellington, New Zealand around 1908.
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Evidencing the interactions between far-flung tattooers, Louis Morgan, in his 1912 book The Modern Tattooist, listed who he considered the top tattooers in the world at the time. Included are Swift and Maori tattooer, Aranghu, of New Zealand, and many others from around the world.
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By 1912, Swift and his wife Bertha found themselves in Sydney, where they established a tattoo shop at 186 Riley street, and shortly after, in 1913, at 185a Riley Street. In 1913, with plenty of tattoo experience under his belt, Henry set off solo to the maritime city of San Francisco, landing on American soil on the 6th of November. The passenger manifest notes that he was visiting friend and fellow tattoo artist Louis Morgan of 41 Market Street. Soon after, Swift made San Francisco his permanent home. He was joined by his wife after several years, but not before she divorced him for abandoning her then remarried him again in San Francisco.
Charles Louis Morgan (1886-1937):
Longstanding San Francisco tattoo artist, Louis Morgan was tattooing at 41 Market street as early as 1911—the same location his friend Henry C. Swift visited him at in 1913.
Morgan had several partners during his years in the city. In 1915, he joined with tattooist, B.J. Edwards at 645 Jackson street, in a short-lived venture that went awry. Edwards had given Morgan a 40-dollar check, evidently his half of business expenses. Upon receiving the payment, Morgan issued a set of keys to his new partner. Later that night Morgan’s machines were stolen from the premises. Edwards was the main suspect, as the check he gave Morgan turned out to be bogus.
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Within this same period, c. 1911 to 1916, old-timer tattoo artist James L. Hayes (1851-1936) was also busy etching the arms and chests of in-port sailors, and the like, in his San Francisco, East Street tattoo shop. Though it’s not clear if he had teamed up with Morgan at all, Hayes business card indicates he tattooed a spell at the 645 Jackson Street location, as well, during his stint in the city. (See Buzzworthy post The Case of an Obscure Tattooer: Prof. J.L. Hayes).
Madam Austin: The Lady Tattoo Artist:
A surprise among the tattooers catering to ruffians in San Francisco’s Barbary Coast sailor-haven district was Madam Austin. While not much is known about this early lady tattooer, other than the fact that she held her own operating a tattoo shop-photo studio on seedy Kearny Street in 1915, it’s possible she was the same person as Mary Meyers—the woman tattooer who partnered with Swedish immigrant Tom Berg on Kearny Street c. 1917-1918.
Walter Maurice Lyons (1872-1952):
An even earlier San Francisco tattoo artist was Prof. W.M. Lyons, a sailor-tattooer fresh off the ship from Australia around the turn of the century. Lyons, aka “Americas Premier Tattoo Artist,” claimed to have been tattooing in the city at the time of the Great Earthquake (April 1906), and also later on when he took a role in the 1913 film The Last Night of the Barbary Coast. A bit of a wanderer, Lyons had also traveled through Canada, San Antonio, and various cities in Northern California in the first decade of the 1900s.
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Lyons was one of San Diego’s early tattoo artists. In 1913, in the city’s sailor-infested Gaslamp Quarter, just East of the Naval pier, he set up a tattoo shop at 847 4th Avenue—a location only a couple doors away from the 1930-40s tattoo shop of another well-known Australian transplant (see next section).
In 1917, Lyons returned to Australia after so many years away plying his trade as one of America’s early twentieth century tattoo artists, and traveled the expanse of his old homeland as a sideshow tattooer with various carnivals. Eventually, around 1929, he found himself in Fremantle, Western Australia, tattooing at South Beach, then in 1930 as a standing fixture at Imperial Chambers, above the Strand Cafe on Market street.
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A stone’s throw away from Lyons’ new location, near the Fremantle train station, was the buzz of Uglieland. A carnival akin to a small Luna Park, Uglieland’s entrance was adorned with a glowing arch and towers on each side and a corrugated iron perimeter plastered with adverts boasting the venue’s offerings—everything from the large dancehall, boxing matches, and wood chopping contests to numerous other sideshow attractions, and an evening hours tattoo booth hosted by none other than Prof. Lyons. Records indicate Lyons was working at Uglieland in 1930, possibly longer.
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Harry V. Lawson (1882-1950):
Prof. Harry Lawson, full name Hurtle Vivian Lawson, was born in Barossa, Australia on October 23, 1882 (he often reported 1872). While not a world explorer per se, he wasn’t unadventurous. Prior to arriving in America, he had traveled some: he served in the Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902); spent time in Adelaide, Australia where he was jailed for 1 month in 1902 for using “obscene language,” lived in Kooyong, Australia c. 1905-1906; then in 1906 he set sail for the U.S. via Colon, South America.
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Although Lawson mentioned in several newspaper interviews that he had picked up tattooing during travels as a sailor, it’s not clear how intent he was on a tattoo career in his pre-America years. Once he set foot on U.S. soil, however, he took right to the needle and plied his craft across the country.
Over the years he worked (with various tattooers) in Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, Norfolk, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and by the 1930s, San Diego. Here he partnered with Owen Jensen at 849 4th Avenue c. 1939-1941—two doors over from where Prof. Lyons’ 1913 tattoo shop was located, in a building still standing today.
By 1943, he was tattooing once again in Los Angeles on South Main Street, and soon after at his last shop, 25 Cedar Way, on the Long Beach Pike.
A Tattoo Journey’s End:
I hope you enjoyed this trip through tattoo history. This brief ‘Tattoo Journey’ paints just a small picture of the extensive travels that brought tattooers around the world in the first half of the twentieth century and introduced many cross-influences into tattooing.
Although the precise details of what these tattooers shared amongst each other are long lost to history, there’s no denying the lasting impact of their interactions. These meaningful connections make up the lineage of tattooing—the passed-on knowledge that progressed and preserved the craft/trade, ensuring its survival for future generations.
The global experiences of tattooers are innumerable, but for now, that’s the long and the short of it!!!
Questions or Comments? Email:
carmennyssen@buzzworthytattoo.com
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