In this episode of The Neo Historian we are joined by Dr Matt Lodder to talk about the history of tattooing as an art form and profession. Matt tells us how tattoos existed in England long before Captain Cook was said to have brought the art form to London, the influence of Yakuza gangs on Japan's Onsen rules and on how a butcher from Wapping tempted 19th century aristocrats to tattoo their own children!

Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art by Dr Matt Lodder

The true history of tattoo as both art and profession in the West.

There is a pervasive stereotype of tattoo culture as relating to an underworld of scoundrels, sailors, and ne’er-do-wells, yet it has existed in the West as a professionalized art practice for centuries. Drawing on extensive new research and unprecedented access to largely unpublished private archives of photographs, art, and ephemera, Matt Lodder offers a new perspective on the history of commercial tattooing in Europe and the United States, beginning even before it emerged as a recognizable profession in the mid-nineteenth century. In the process, he shows that the art of tattoo has long been both practiced and commissioned by individuals across economic, gender, and class divides; he also examines the stylistic trends that have shaped tattoo’s development as an art form over its history.

Lodder introduces the many artists and professionals who shaped tattoo history, including early figures like Martin Hildebrandt, the first-known professional tattoo artist in the West; prominent woman artists like Grace Bell and Jessie Knight; mid-twentieth-century icons like Sailor Jerry and Les Skuse and the Bristol Tattoo Club; and contemporary industry stars including Ed Hardy, Davy Jones, and the Leu family. Richly illustrated with rarely published images, this important book is the first to examine the history of tattoo in the west as both a serious profession and an art form.

Dr Matt Lodder is a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Theory, and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Art History at the University of Essex, and one of the University of Essex' Public Voice Scholars. He teaches European, American and Japanese art, architecture, visual culture and theory from the late 19th century to the present, including modern and contemporary art post-1945, digital and "new media" art, and the intersections between art & politics.

Buy the book: Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art

Dr Matt Lodder: University of Essex Senior Lecturer

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Matt Lodder's Podcast: Beneath the Skin

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