A Deep Dive on Early European, British and American Tattooers
From Sutherland MacDonald to Bert Grimm
To fully understand and appreciate American traditional style tattooing one must first look at the early pioneers of European born tattooers such as Martin Hildebrandt and British tattooers such as Sutherland MacDonald and George Burchett. The artists of the Victorian era and earlier played an important role in bridging the gap between Japanese and Western tattooing, which in turn helped lead to the development of what we know as American traditional tattooing today.
In this guide, we'll cover
Martin Hildebrandt was a German immigrant who brought his artistry with him to the United States of America in 1846 while he sailed with the US navy until 1849, tattooing fellow immigrants and sailors. Though Hildebrandt really cut his teeth during the American Civil War from 1861-1865 tattooing thousands of men from both sides, mainly names and initials for identification purposes if they were to fall in battle. Martin tattooed by hand and by the year 1859 he was working in New York and was even listed in the New York directories as a tattooer at 361 Water Street. Hildebrandt's most well known client is probably his common-law wife Nora Hildebrandt who is considered one of the first “tattooed ladies” to perform in the US. Nora is also sometimes misrepresented as Martins daughter. Martin Hildebrandt was known for tattooing snakes, portraits, flowers, and script mainly. From his work particularly on Nora we can see a direct correlation to what is now seen as American Traditional style tattooing. Hildebrandt tattooed until 1885 when he was arrested for disorderly conduct and was taken to New York City Asylum for the Insane where he died five years later.
Sutherland MacDonald traveled extensively with the British Army as an engineer in the early 1880’s where he was also exposed to tattoos for the first time. Tattoos in England already existed, but there were no true “professional” tattooers making a career out of the art form. At this time tattoos were mainly being done by sailors in the Navy using hand poke methods picked up on their travels, making simple geometric designs in typically unsterile settings. MacDonald opened his shop in 1894 run out of the Hamam Turkish Baths at 76 Jermyn Street in London. At this time MacDonald was heavily influenced by Japanese tattooer Hori Chiyo who was working out of Yokohama in Japan. Hori Chiyo imitated the traditional themes and styles of Ukiyo-e woodblock carvings. These included dragons, frogs, snakes, fish and birds among others. Nature themes were prevalent in Japanese tattooing and artists like MacDonald took direct inspiration from them, finding his own style at the same time. MacDonald started, like most artists of the time, using hand poke methods to tattoo before he patented his own electric machine design in 1894. Though it should be noted that the first electric tattoo machine was created by Samuel O’Reilley around the year 1880. While MacDonald would have tattooed many soldiers, sailors and workers, he is also supposed to have tattooed a number of aristocrats and worked hard to change the perception of tattooing from one seen as more low brow to a true art form. I would say he succeeded in that as by the year 1900 he had been named “the Michaelangelo of tattooing” by L’Illustration and stayed a popular tattooer to visit and collect from until his death in 1937.
While MacDonald is maybe the most well known tattooer from the Victorian period, and for good reason, he was by no means the only professional, just the first. Tom Riley is another big name to come out of the United Kingdom in the world of early professional tattooing. Riley, much like MacDonald got his start in tattooing while in the British Army. He began tattooing by hand in 1889 and then with machine after also patenting his own tattoo machine in 1894. By 1895 Riley opened his first shop in Glasgow, later opening shops in Liverpool and London as well. Riley became particularly well known for tattooing King Edward VII and high society women. Riley also drew inspiration for his tattoos from nature and was one artist to create a version of one of my favourite classic Western designs, the battle Royale which features an eagle, an East Asian style dragon and a snake locked in battle.
George Burchett AKA the King of Tattooists came around just a bit later than MacDonald and Riley. In the late 1890s after returning to England from a brief stint in Jaffa, Palestine where Burchett had deserted the military and tattooed mainly Western travellers after finding the structure of the navy didn’t suit him he was found by MacDonald and taken on as an apprentice. Burchett had gained experience tattooing by hand for the few years he was in the navy and in Palestine and had himself been tattooed quite extensively, even by famed Hori Chiyo while in Japan. While apprenticing Burchett still worked as a shoe cobbler but by the year 1900 he became enough among primarily sailors and dock workers that he was able to become a full time tattooer. Burchett of course was heavily influenced by MacDonald and tattooed much of the same kind of imagery, lots of nature designs from animals to delicate flowers. He also tattooed many dragons, ships, heart and banner motifs, portraits and even cosmetic tattooing for women. Burchett loved the spotlight and having tattooed a number of quite famous individuals helped to lend him the nickname the King of Tattooists. Most notably Burchett tattooed a dragon on the chest of King Frederick IX of Denmark and did the full body suit of Horace Ridler AKA The Great Omi who had his whole body tattooed by Burchett to look like a zebra (more to come on The Great Omi in our next article). By the 1930’s Burchett had begun offering cosmetic tattooing to women, filling lips and eyebrows and even adding beauty spots or blush to their cheeks. When WWII started to really rear its ugly head Burchett attempted to retire from tattooing in 1942 and leave his business to his sons, but the high demand for tattoos for men going to fight the Nazis meant Burchett kept working until 1953 when he passed away peacefully at the age of 80.
Charlie Wagner was a tattooer who worked in tattoo shops in New York City starting in the 1890s, training under the father of the modern tattoo machine Samuel O’Reilly. O’Reilly and Wagners work are both reminiscent of designs coming out of England and Europe at large at the same time which would have been seen and showed off by mainly sailors traveling the world. Wagner opened his own shop in 1899 on East Houston Street where he tattooed many folks seeking a career in dime museums where the curious could view tattooed Americans. Wagner went back to O’Reilly’s shop in 1909 and took it over after O’Reilly’s death, but is most well known for his own invention of a new tattoo machine modelled after his mentors, in 1904. This new machine used vertical coils in a tube, which was the first to do so and is still the same design used today by “coil machine” enthusiasts. Wagners flash as well as machine invention are his legacy and while he will never be forgotten little is known about his death (probably sometime in 1953) and even his exact place of burial is not known to even his family, only that he passed in relative poverty living in a rooming house and was buried somewhere in Potters Field, Hart Island.
Percy Waters was an early American traditional tattooer from Alabama who began tattooing in the 1910’s after becoming enamoured with the designs he saw on the sideshow performers in traveling circuses passing through his little town of Anniston, Alabama. He began tattooing after getting equipment most likely from someone passing through and worked at both the local Foundry and as tattooer to the locals until 1917 when it’s reported that Waters tattooed the wrong person and was essentially chased out of town. Waters settled in Detroit after a short stay in New York City. While in New York young Percy Waters learned the craft of tattooing from well known artists such as Charlie Wagner working in the infamous Bowery District. Detroit is where Waters built his very successful and well known tattoo supply business and also tattooed a number of well known sideshow attractions including Red Van, Mrs. Ted Hamilton, and Detroit Dutch among others. Waters became well known for tattooing classic American Traditional designs like swallows, daggers, lady heads, ships as well as some of my favourite traditional back pieces, the Rock of Ages and Pharaohs Horses among others. He stayed in Detroit until 1939 when he moved back to Anniston where he tattooed sporadically and ran his business until he died in 1952.
Bert Grimm was certainly one of the most influential American tattooers of the early 20th century with his work still being tattooed and still recognizable today. Some of his most famous designs include the happy and sad sun and moon, the crying heart, his specific brand of tiger head and the Duel in the Sun which he most famously tattooed on another well known tattooer, Lyle Tuttle and has been recreated hundreds if not thousands of times. Grimm started hanging around tattoo shops when he was a kid and began tattooing by at least the age of 15 in Portland, Oregon, though his first official job wasn’t until he started working at the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show where he was able to secure a tattoo apprenticeship first with Sailor George Fosdick and then Sailor Charlie Barrs when he went to LA in the mid 1920’s. Grimm is most well known for working out of his Bert’s World Famous Tattoo Shop in Nu Pike Long Beach, CA that he operated from the early 1950’s through the 60’s. Bert Grimm was inducted into the Tattoo Hall of Fame at Lyle Tuttle’s Tattoo Art Museum in San Francisco and retired in Oregon but continued to tattoo out of a private home studio until his passing in One of 1985 at the age of 85.
While these tattooers are by no means the only influential artists from their time periods, they are all in their own way partially responsible for the creation and rise of what is now American traditional tattooing and Western tattoo styles by and large. Without these historic artists tattooing would not be what it is today.
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References(11)
- Allthingstattoo.ca
- Amazing Photos Reveal the Work of Britain’s First Tattoo Artist in Victorian Times By Jessica Stewart
- Birth of the Tattoo Trade: New York Bowery by Carmen Nyssen
- George Burchett: The Man, The Myth, The Legend by Matt Lodder
- Findagrave.com
- Japonisme in Early British-American Tattooing by Hayden Reich
- New Military Tattoo is Popular from the Leicester Evening Mail 18th May 1940
- Tattooing in Contemporary Society: Identity and Authenticity by Michael Rees
- Image source: Percy Waters and Pharoahs Horses back, sourced from Derinbray on Instagram
- Image source: Ed Caldwell and Bert Grimm, from Vintage Tattoo Archive
- Image source: Design by English tattooist Tom Riley from a 1900 magazine article, sourced from Prof York on Instagram