Geoff and partner, Photograph by Jonathan May.
Shortlisted for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011.

As a researcher who specialises in the preservation of tattooed human skin, I have encountered some extraordinary things stored away in archives, museums and private collections in the course of my work. But I don’t just work with the dead – I have also had the opportunity to meet some very interesting people over the years, who all have remarkable tales to tell about their tattoos, their collections, or their experiences working with human remains.

One of the most interesting – and certainly the most colourful – individuals I’ve ever met is Geoff Ostling, also known as the ‘Heavily Tattooed Bear’. A retired Australian school teacher, Geoff made the decision to embark upon a full tattooed body suit at the age of 42. He first made contact with me in January 2012, when he was planning a trip to the UK to attend the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery in London. A portrait of himself and his partner, Joseph, would feature in the exhibition (pictured above). As well as spending some time at the Brighton Tattoo Convention, he was also interested in visiting the Science Museum archives to see the collection of tattoos that I was working on there. His interest was very personal, he explained, as he intended to have his entire body suit preserved after death. It’s not unusual for me to receive e-mail letters from people who are interested in having their tattoos preserved postmortem, and I am frequently asked questions about the practical process and legality of preserving human remains. But to date, Geoff is the only individual I know of who has entered into a verbal agreement with an art institution that is willing to accession his tattooed skin after he dies.

We arranged to meet at the Science Museum archives on the 26th of January, where I would introduce him to the Wellcome Collection tattooed skins. I was intrigued about his motivations for having his tattoos preserved, and as I was to find out, he had been careful to take all practicalities into consideration. I met Geoff and his partner Joe in the morning, and after we’d made our introductions, he immediately handed me a DVD with a handwritten label that says SKIN. “It’s a documentary,” he tells me, “about my tattoos.” He wants me to watch it straight away. We sit in a little cafe near Barons Court tube station and I watch the film with him and Joe over a coffee. In the opening scene, Geoff speaks directly to the camera, and my first question is answered:

Had I lived in a previous time and got tattooed by Rembrandt, or tattooed by van Dyke, or tattooed by van Gogh, or tattooed by Picasso … I think that you would think that this was something that ought to be preserved … rather than just be destroyed when I died.

A body of work: Geoff pictured with one of eX de Medici’s large scale watercolour paintings,
titled Cure For Pain, at the National Gallery of Australia. Photograph courtesy of Jim Anderson.

Geoff has been working with the same tattooist, Australian artist eX de Medici, for 20 years. The film covers the genesis of his body suit, from its design in consultation with a horticulturist, to his choice of artist and the development of their relationship, to the gradual transformation of his body as he is tattooed. The whole process is presented as a kind of metamorphosis, the ‘blooming’ into life of a unique work of art. In his own words, his tattoos are “all the flowers, both native and exotic, that grow in a Sydney garden … the body suit is original and it is all drawn from nature.” Watching the documentary, it becomes clear to me that both Geoff and the curators of the National Gallery of Australia who have agreed to acquire his skin, very much view his tattoos as artworks like any other. But are tattoos ever really artworks like any other? I suspect that the artist, eX de Medici, may also question this notion when she comments that, “the radical difference between an art practice and tattooing is that it’s not for you – its got to be about them. All you’re doing is facilitating something they need.” How she feels about her tattoo work being collected by the gallery – which already owns many of her paintings and drawings – is barely touched upon. I wonder too, how Geoff will relate to the Wellcome Collection tattoos that I work with, which were neither made by skilled tattooists with artistic reputations, nor preserved according to their wishes, but rather taken to satisfy the collecting interests of other people during the 19th century.

With Geoff Ostling at the Science Museum archives in Kensington Olympia, London. January 2012.

When we arrive at the archive, Geoff is immediately in his element. I give him a pair of latex gloves and get out the first box of tattoos. He is fascinated by them, and all of the questions he asks me are familiar questions that I asked myself when I first began working with them: Who were these people? Who were the tattooists? How were they made? What was the significance of this or that tattoo? How did they feel when they got this tattoo? The answers to most of these questions will of course never be conclusively answered. Most of the tattoos were produced by amateurs, with whatever materials were available to hand, and much of the iconography speaks of military and seafaring life, travels abroad, love and death. These people did not consent to have their tattoos preserved, but were instead a subject of interest to criminologists and physicians, many of whom viewed tattooing not as art, but as a primitive sign of moral deprivation. The lives of these 19th century tattooed men are a million miles away from the artistically accomplished and respected tattoo profession of the 21st century.

But I’m still wondering about what drives him to want to have his skin flayed from his body and preserved after death – something that many people would regard as morbid, or even horrifying. Does handling the tattooed skins of others make the reality of what he intends to do any more visceral? Geoff is philosophical about it – he compares the revulsion some people have when they hear about his plans to the unease many people feel about donating their organs after death. In some sense, then, he sees having his skin preserved and displayed for others as a personal donation which has intrinsic value – artwork to be enjoyed, skilled preservation to be marvelled at, something which will inspire fascination as much as revulsion. Becoming an artful curiosity after death doesn’t seem to daunt him – in fact, he already enjoys showing off his tattoos at conventions around the world, and readily undresses to show me his full body suit as soon as we arrive at the archive. Geoff tells me that his tattoos are his most valuable possession, and he is evidently proud of them. It seems a fitting legacy that his brightly decorated skin should be preserved and put on public display in an art gallery.

As we look through the boxes filled with human parchments, one strikes us both as particularly resonant: it is a fairly large fragment, most likely from a chest, tattooed with the figure of a grim reaper clutching an hourglass in one bony hand, and a scythe in the other. Next to this is an image of a tombstone beneath a weeping willow. Above the image the phrase pense a moi is tattooed – “think of me”. Geoff and I reflect on this memorial tattoo – as well as commemorating the loss of a loved one, it also seems to speak of the awareness this person had of their own mortality. The tattooed phrase is especially poignant – we will never know who this person was, and they could never have imagined that we would be reading their tattooed sentiments, a hundred years after they died. Is this a part of Geoff’s motivations – a desire for some part of himself to live on after death? He tells me that he believes that human desire for some form of immortality is a universal urge, and it seems fair to say that it is not just eX de Medici’s art that he wishes to preserve beyond his own lifetime, but the most significant piece of his physical self, too.

Showing Geoff one of the memorial tattoos in the collection.

Geoff carries a copy of his will everywhere he goes, which sets out his wishes for his remains should he die unexpectedly. He has a team of people ready to execute those wishes when the time comes, including his personal doctor, funeral directors and a taxidermist, all of whom are interviewed in the film. I am also interested to hear that although there is a verbal agreement between Geoff and the current curatorial staff at the National Gallery of Australia, the situation may well change by the time of his death. He reflects that if he dies 20 years from now, changes in staff at the museum may mean that they no longer want to display his tattooed skin: “Although they are happy to accept the donation of my tattoos if I were to die tomorrow, this may not be the situation in the year 2033. The National Gallery will have a new director and a new staff. The Gallery may have taken a completely different direction and may not want to accept my skin. Maybe they will accept it but not allow it to be put on show. It will be stupid if they did accept it and then failed to display it from time to time.”

As with everything else, Geoff has contingency plans in case of this eventuality. “If the NGA decide not to accept it,” he tells me “my skin should be offered first to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and second to MONA in Hobart.  If no Australian Art Gallery or Museum wants it, it could be offered to the Wellcome Museum. It will be at the discretion of my partner, assuming he is still alive, and to my executors, with the condition that it is displayed from time to time.” If Geoff’s tattooed body suit were to end up in the Wellcome Collection, it strikes me that this would be an interesting, if slightly incongruous, footnote to the history of tattoo collecting. Both his attitude towards tattoos and his motivations for having them preserved couldn’t be more different from the context in which the 19th century specimens were collected – but they are nevertheless a source of inspiration to him. To Geoff, these crude tattoos are art too, though perhaps not the work of ‘great artists’ like Rembrandt, van Gogh, Picasso – or even eX de Medici. There is no doubting that the surge in the popularity of tattooing, along with an influx of artistically trained tattooists to the profession, is driving innovation in the art form – perhaps Geoff is simply ahead of a trend, and we will see a lot more preserved tattooed flesh in the art galleries of the future. Whether or not tattoos may be rightfully considered works of art like any other, for Geoff and the growing numbers of people like him who wish to preserve their ink after death, it is no longer assumed that the tattoos they collect during their lives must necessarily follow them to the grave.

Watch a short excerpt from the documentary film Skin below:

© Life & 6 Months, 2013

This post was first published in the May issue of Things and Ink magazine. You can read more posts in The Tattoo Collectors series here.

Jim Anderson’s photography and fine art website can be found here.

Jonathan May’s photography can be viewed on his website here.

Syphilis infection in a tattoo. Illustration from Notes of Cases on an Outbreak of Syphilis following on Tattooing,
in the British Medical Journal, May 4th, 1889.
(Wellcome Library, London)

Not all 19th century observers took such a positive view of the practice, however. Some doctors in particular, warned of the potential health risks involved in tattooing. In medical journals, there was much discussion of the transmission of infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis and syphilis, via the unregulated and largely unhygienic practice of tattooing. In the early days of the professionalisation of tattooing, amateurs and semi-professionals in ports and barracks still outnumbered the ‘artists’ such as Macdonald, who were seeking to redefine the profession. The health risks were very real: it was not uncommon during this period for the amateur practitioner to use saliva to whet and mix their inks, or ‘clean’ the finished wound.

In 1889, a report appeared in the British Medical Journal of an outbreak of syphilis inoculated by tattooing at a naval barracks in Portsea. [1] Naval surgeon F. R. Barker reported 12 cases of syphilis infection amongst the recruits, all of whom had been tattooed by the same man, known only as ‘S’. This man was a discharged solider of the regiment, who traded as a tattooist in the barracks. Unfortunately, he also suffered from syphilis; he succeeded in infecting his unwitting clients by using his saliva in the tattooing process, often whetting the needles in his mouth or mixing his inks with saliva. Barker’s report was not isolated, with 8 other documented cases of syphilis following tattooing reported in the medical literature from 1853-1895. Unsurprisingly, the new class of professional tattooists soon became aware of the need to operate with some degree of antisepsis, and concerned for their livelihoods in the wake of such health scares, began advertising their ‘hygienic methods’. Writing in 1912, American tattooist Louis Morgan details his method of maintaining sanitary working practices as follows:

Keep the needles thoroughly clean by washing in strong antiseptic, such as bichloride of mercury or carbolic acid. Wash the acid off well in clear water and dry with a clean cloth. Then dip in vaseline. When a tattoo is finished wash it with witch-hazel and alcohol in equal parts, and apply some kind of antiseptic healing salve. [2]

The business cards of early 20th century tattooists often made a point of advertising the cleanliness of their studios and practices. Louis Morgan’s own card (c.1912) clearly advertises his ‘Thoroughly Antiseptic Method’.
Courtesy of the Tattoo Archive, Berkeley California.

It is interesting to note that whilst there was concern amongst tattooists and medical professionals alike about the health risks associated with tattooing, some tattooists – and their clients – actually considered the practice to be beneficial to health. Morgan himself stated that: “It is well known that a good-sized tattoo is as good an innoculation [sic] as any vaccination, and people who have considerable tattoo work on their bodies are generally more healthy than those who have none.” [3] Perhaps more surprising than this belief however, is the idea that tattooing could in fact cure the very same diseases it was implicated in spreading. It would seem that some of the imported folklore surrounding the healing properties of tattooing were confused – by some American tattooists, at least – with contemporary medical reports about the health risks associated with the practice, as this quote from Samuel Steward’s memoires of working as a tattooist in the 1950s reveals:

Old Randy in the arcade shop insisted that a tattoo cured syphilis. Possibly in his dim way he had heard of an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association stating that a syphilitic ulcer on a man’s arm, originating on his wrist and travelling upwards, was stopped dead when it reached the red pigment of a tattoo. No wonder: the red pigment was a spirocheticide – mercuric sulphide, one of the old specifics against syphilis before the days of penicillin. The presence of mercury in the skin was enough to arrest the progress of a shallow skin ulcer; after that, the bugs went undercover.[4]

Somewhat ironically, the influence of folk belief and medical discourse conspire to produce an unfortunate amalgam, resulting in the assertion that a tattoo can, in fact, cure syphilis – apparently encouraged by the unexpected therapeutic side effects of the cinnabar-based red tattoo pigments used early on in tattooing. There are a number of articles in the British and American medical journals spanning from 1878 to around 1957, which deal with both the adverse and therapeutic effects of mercury-based tattoo pigments. However, the article most likely referred to in Steward’s book is George H. Belote’s Tattoo and Syphilis, which appeared in the Archives of Dermatology and Syphilology in 1928. In his report, which investigates cases of tattooed patients suffering with secondary syphilitic eruptions, Belote makes the following observation:

On both forearms there were tattoo designs done in dark blue, green and vermilion (mercuric sulphide). In all the designs papules were present in the green and blue, but apparently not in the red. This was made more apparent by the fact that here and there papules occurred in the blue outlining the red, but appeared to stop sharply when the red portion was reached. Since this eruption was extremely profuse, it is assumed to have been more than a mere coincidence that all the red was spared. [5]

Another commentator in the medical periodicals, Lieutenant Commander Novy of the U.S.N.R, took a particularly dim view of the “so-called artists” who practiced tattooing with “no concept of antisepsis” and thought less of their premises and methods, which he generally regarded as “filthy”. However, he concedes that, “a theoretic explanation of low incidence of infection may be found in the fact that one of the red dyes contains cinnabar, which is mercuric sulphide. This chemical may act as an antiseptic as the needles are constantly dipped into the dye.” [6]

Though syphilis was much more commonly contracted through sexual activity in the 19th century, tattooing nevertheless played its part in the spread of the disease. The short video below, produced by the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, shows a colourful example from their collections, of an 1877 case of syphilis contracted via tattooing:

Unfortunately, syphilis is once again becoming a serious health concern in Europe and the USA, with a sharp rise in the number of reported cases. Most recently in the UK, an increase in the number of syphilis cases amongst teenagers was reported in 2011, making the observation of sterilisation and hygiene practices in contemporary tattoo studios all the more relevant.

© Life & 6 Months, 2013

Part of this post is an extract from Gemma Angel’s article, Atavistic Marks and Risky Practices: The Tattoo in Medico-Legal Debate, 1850-1950. Published in the forthcoming edited collection, A Medical History of Skin: Scratching the Surface. Available from Pickering Chatto, March 2013.

[6] Novy, Frederick G. JR., (Lieutenant Commander, U.S.N.R), ‘A Generalized Mercurial (Cinnabar) Reaction Following Tattooing’, in Archives of Dermatology and Syphilology, Vol.49, No.3 (Mar. 1944), pp.172-173.

Whilst many of the tattoo designs in the Paris collection were familiar – circus performers, regimental crests, French phrases and slogans, busts and portraits – there were some that stood out as unique. One tattoo in particular caught my eye: A small black and red image of a winged phallus (pictured below). I was immediately struck by the absurd humour of the design, and my first impulse was to laugh out loud – a disembodied penis with wings cannot help but draw a smile, or perhaps a perplexed frown – but I was also intrigued by what was obviously a highly symbolic image. But what could its symbolic meaning be?

The winged phallus tattoo. From the collection of Dr Kermogant, c.1904.
(MNHN object no. 27975).
Photograph courtesy of the MNHN, Paris.

Although the tattoo is very faded, the outstretched wings and erect penis are clearly discernible; both are characteristic features in representations of the winged phallus. In this case, red ink has been used to emphasize the virility of the phallus. Whilst tattoo motifs such as this one may seem amusing, puerile or even obscene to us today, this particular motif actually has a long iconographic history embedded in religious practice and magic ritual, going at least as far back as Ancient Rome. ‘Fascinum’ as representations such as this are known, refers to the divine phallus or embodiment of the Roman god of fertility and abundance, Fascinus. Phallus effigies such as those pictured below were often worn as protection charms, particularly by young boys and soldiers, and were thought to ward off the evil eye and bring fertility to the fields and the people (see my related post on UCL Researchers in Museums for more on Roman religion and the winged phallus).

Gallo-Roman fascinum in bronze, including one example with wings. From the collection of the Musée Saint-Remi.

There are two striking visual elements to this motif: the addition of wings to the phallus, and its peculiar disembodiment. Both of these iconographic features have quite a specific and complex history, connected to folk belief and vernacular speech. The phallus is invariably represented as virile and erect – quite alive, despite its disembodiment. It may be thus considered a powerful symbol of masculine generative energy, rather than one of castration or emasculation. The addition of wings may seem bizarre, but in fact the penis has frequently been associated with birds in many European cultures. Much of the slang terminology we use to describe male genitalia is derived from or related to birds. ‘Cock’ has been in use since at least the early 17th century, and ‘bird’ was used to refer to the penis during the 19th century in England. In Spanish the term ‘paloma’ (pigeon or dove), the Italian ‘uccello’ (bird), and the American ‘canary’, are all terms for the penis drawn from the common names of birds. [1]

Third century Christian observers considered the celebration of pagan traditions involving the phallus, such as the coming of age festival Liberalia on the 17th of March, to be sinful, which is somewhat ironic given that the phallus was used in Roman religion as a powerful protection symbol against evil. In Europe during the late Middle Ages, the disembodied phallus became associated with witchcraft, through the belief that witches could – and did – steal penises. One anecdote recounted in the notorious 15th century demonological text Malleus Maleficarum, written by inquisitor for the Catholic church Heinrich Kramer, describes the fantastical image of a nest of living phalli:

And what, then, is to be thought of those witches who [...] sometimes collect male members in great numbers, as many as twenty or thirty members together, and put them in a bird’s nest, or shut them up in a box, where they move themselves like living members, and eat oats and corn, as has been seen by many and is a matter of common report? [2]

That the phalli are said to be kept in a nest, further demonstrates the connection between the penis and birds. Interestingly, the phalli in the nest behave as though alive, and far from suggesting that witches may physically remove the penis, the subtext of this story reveals a fear of emasculation by female usurpation of male sexual power, embodied by the erect phallus.[3] Whilst the idea of using magic to ‘steal’ male genitalia may seem bizarre and far-fetched, this belief is still strongly held in parts of Africa. Mass panics caused by the alleged use of sorcery to steal or shrink the penis have been reported as recently as 2008 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Medically, this belief is referred to as koro (also known as genital retraction syndrome), and is classified as a culture-specific syndrome in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. [4]

So what did the winged phallus signify for the 19th century European man who tattooed the image above onto his body? It may be that it was worn as a talisman against harm, according to 19th century interpretations of ancient magical practices. Or it may simply be that the image of a virile, flying penis was associated with sexual prowess, and appealed to a bawdy sense of humour. Though the magical or religious symbolism of the winged phallus may no longer have significance in contemporary European culture, the image still has its appeal. Perhaps considered more comic, playful or absurd in our present context, the fascinum still appears as a popular tattoo motif, as this colourful example by US tattoo artist Rachael Davies demonstrates.

Contemporary example of the winged phallus tattoo,
by tattooist Rachael Davies of Five Star Tattoo, Louisville Kentucky, USA.
Photograph courtesy of Rachael Davies.

© Life & 6 Months, 2012

The gallery owner suggests that he have the tattoo removed by skin graft operation, and offers to pay a handsome sum for the flayed ‘artwork’ – a proposal that is immediately countered by protests from the gathered patrons – the old man could never survive such a procedure. Poor old Drioli becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the discussion going on around him, until eventually, he is made an offer by one of the art collectors to perform as a living picture gallery at his hotel, where he will be able to live a life of luxury in return. Drioli accepts, and a few weeks later, a “nicely framed and heavily varnished” picture by Soutine, matching the description of Drioli’s tattoo, turns up at an auction in Buenos Aires.[1] As a child, I remember the shiver of morbid delight I felt reading this outlandishly ghoulish ending – but I never would have dreamed that such a thing as preserved tattoos actually existed. Now, I wonder whether Roald Dahl drew inspiration from personal experience of seeing such a collection.

DVD cover image from the 2002 film “Tattoo”, showing a fully flayed and preserved tattooed human skin.

Until recently, the real history of tattoo collecting in the 19th and 20th centuries has received little serious research attention. Despite this, the preserved tattoo has continued to capture the popular imagination in film and fiction. Representations of the practice are typically portrayed within the horror genre as the work of murderous psychopaths, and tattooing is frequently connected with criminal elements: Robert Schwentke’s noir-ish and heavily stylised 2002 film Tattoo is a case in point.[2]

The film opens where Roald Dahl’s gallery owner leaves off – with the removal of a tattoo from the living body by skin graft. Dahl’s gruesome suggestion is graphically realised by Schwentke: A naked and traumatized female victim stumbles down a dark main road in a drugged stupor, blood running down her legs – the camera pans up to reveal her back, a raw and bloody wound, almost all of the skin stripped away in a neat rectangle. Her tattoo has been stolen; she does not survive the procedure.

The deviant, disreputable and underworld associations with the tattoo, its related subcultures and practitioners is ever-present within the film’s milieu: From the tattooist who smokes as he works on tattooing the arm of an underage boy, his studio doubling up as a back-alley porn studio; to the street junkie who sells his pound of tattooed flesh for a hit; to the tattooed porn actress who is inevitably murdered, the tattooed skin of her breasts discovered pinned to the back of a door in a ad-hoc attempt at preservation. Wherever tattoos are encountered, criminality, morally dubious behaviour and anomie are never far away. Even the cultured collector, who admits that the tattooed skin of a murdered girl is the “pinnacle of tattoo art – perhaps all art” believes that our present day taste for tattooing represents a return to the primitive, a retreat from civilisation: “Instead of advancing away from the primitive, we are drawn back to our base natures.” But his apparent appreciation for the tattoo as an art form is undermined when the police discover a private room adjacent to his gallery of decorated human skin, which is lavishly furnished with soft, pale leather wall panels, lamps and upholstered armchairs. Human skin is itself fetishised, made into tactile objects of everyday use – the ultimate in taboo collectors’ items, recalling the worst perversions of Nazi concentration camps, and the spectre of the human lampshade.

Photograph of Dr. Katsunari Fukushi, reproduced from the article “Remains to be Seen”, in Tattoo Time Volume 4: Life & Death Tattoos, by Don Ed Hardy (1987).

It is interesting to note that both Schwentke’s film and Dahl’s story locate the preserved tattoo within the sphere of the art world – both treat the tattooist as ‘great artists’ in their own right, whether he be a painter or Japanese tattoo master. The value of the work is considered to be far greater once the artist/tattooist is dead. And both narratives identify the collector of tattooed human skin as fine art collectors who possess a cultured appreciation of the tattoo. Despite this, Dahl and Schwentke’s collectors look down upon the tattooed themselves, occupying a more privileged class position. By adopting an art world context in their narratives, the subjugation of the bodies and interests of one group of people, for the sake of the pathological aesthetic values of another, can perhaps be more clearly understood in terms of class. The lower classes are tattooed; the upper classes collect art. Of course, 19th and 20th century tattoo collectors were not strictly art connoisseurs, though some certainly took an interest in tattoo iconography. Rather, they were doctors and police scientists in positions of institutional authority over the tattooed classes whom they studied. They were people who possessed the power and resources to collect tattooed skin from cadavers in prisons, hospitals, barracks and asylums.

Whether or not Dahl did see such objects for himself, it is clear that his tale is intended to be read as a black comedy. Schwentke’s film on the other hand, clearly references real historical practices of tattoo preservation. The choice of the classical Japanese style of tattooing, or irezumi, as the exemplary ‘pinnacle’ of the art form, for instance, recalls the famous (though seldom-seen) collection of tattooed human skins at the Medical Pathology Museum of Tokyo University. Established during the early 20th century by Dr. Masaichi Fukushi and succeeded by his son, Dr. Katsunari Fukushi, this collection contains around 105 human skins tattooed in the traditional Japanese style,[3] including a number of full body suits similar to the one pictured on the DVD cover above.

Dr. Fukushi in the preservation lab at The Medical Pathology Museum of Tokyo University, Japan. Photograph reproduced from Tattoo Time Volume 4: Life & Death Tattoos (1987).

But perhaps the most powerful and uncomfortable subtext present in Schwentke’s film are the associations that can be drawn between tattoo collecting and Nazi concentration camp atrocities. Stories emerged during the 1940′s of the fetishistic tattoo collecting practices of Ilse Koch, the wife of commandant Karl-Otto Koch at the Buchenwald and Majdanek concentration camps. Though never convicted due to a lack of evidence, Koch became known in the press as the “Bitch of Buchenwald”, and was accused of selecting concentration camp inmates for their tattoos, before having them executed and their skins preserved. During her trial, Ilse Koch was portrayed as an evil and sadistic femme fatale, responsible for organising the execution of inmates and ordering the manufacture of grim tattooed human trophies from their bodies. In the final scene of Tattoo, is not difficult to see the parallels with Koch in Schwentke’s villianess: As the arctic and calculating gallery owner, who orchestrates a murderous trade in tattoo collecting, casually lifts the shirt-sleeve of a waiter in a cafe and gazes covetously at the tattoo on his arm.

Sign up for e-mail updates, and look out for the next post in The Tattoo Collectors series, on contemporary tattoo collectors…

© Life & 6 Months, 2012

Part of this post was first published in the November issue of Things and Ink magazine.

Speaking of Pictures: Japanese skin specialist collects human tattoos for Tokyo museum, in Life magazine, April 3rd 150.

Dimensions: h353mm x w228mm x d1mm

‘Mort Aux Vaches’ (Science Museum Object no.544).
Photograph © Gemma Angel, courtesy of the Science Museum, London.

Back in June, I wrote a post about “the wounded tattoo“, one of the larger tattooed skin specimens in the Wellcome Collection. At the time, I was primarily interested in various qualities of the skin that tell a story about how it was preserved, and even which part of the body the skin had come from. However, I feel that some of the very numerous tattoos on this particular specimen also deserve mention. As well as the clues in the shape and texture of the skin, the orientation of the tattoos also suggest that this segment of skin belonged to a left forearm: Above a series of banded horizontal dots, a short ‘wristband’ tattoo is visible, consisting of a decorative pattern of diamonds with a central heart motif. The crude male figure on the back of the hand is also tattooed upright, so as to be presented the right-way-up to others. A number of words and phrases are tattooed vertically down the arm, orientated towards the body in such a way that they would have been legible to the bearer. The most interesting of these reads ‘Mort Aux Vaches’, which translates literally as ‘Death to Cows’.

Tattoos over the back of a left hand. (Science Museum object no. A544).
Photograph © Gemma Angel, courtesy of the Science Museum, London.

This particular phrase apparently originated during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), when French soldiers used it as a term of abuse for the German ‘Wache’ (guard, or sentinels). The similarity of the word ‘waches’ to the French ‘vaches’ may explain the evolution of the expression ‘Mort Aux Vaches’, which was extended as an insult specifically to the police and gendarmes, and finally to anyone in uniform. The insult was considered so provocative in fact, that some offenders appeared in court charged with verbally abusing officers of the law. Writing in 1901, Anatole France gives some insight into the use and meaning of this expression in his satirical L’Affaire Crainquebille, (The Crainquebille Affair). The hapless Jerôme Crainquebille is accused of insulting a police officer. During his trial, his defence clarifies the terms of the insult for the court:

My client is accused of having said: “Death to cows!”. The meaning of this phrase is in no doubt. If you flip through the dictionary of slang, you will read: “Vachard, lazy, idle; stretching lazily like a cow, instead of working.” – Cow, who sells out to the police; snitch. “Death to cows!” is said in certain circles. [1]

Three dot tattoo.

In France, a shorthand version of this expression consists of three dots arranged in a triangle, tattooed between the forefinger and thumb. This particular tattoo is amongst the most common gang tattoos around the world, and is particularly popular within the Cuban and Russian underworld. The signification of the three dot tattoo varies greatly depending upon national and historical context, however; it has also been associated with sailors, who would traditionally receive three dots to mark their first voyage.

Dimensions: A544 h353 x w228mm x d1mm

Date: c.1850-1920

The Wounded Tattoo (Science Museum object no. A544)
Photograph © Gemma Angel, courtesy of the Science Museum, London.

Working through the tattoo collection in the Science Museum archives, I habitually crosscheck my own observations with the museum’s catalogue database. Most of the entries are brief and descriptive, and there is little, if any, useful historical information – its part of my ongoing job to rectify this. Occasionally, however, I come across an interesting interpretative note that inspires further reflection. For instance, whilst working on object no. A544 recently, I read this comment in the catalogue:

Wounded human skin with various crude tattoos, probably French, 1850-1920.

The photograph above shows the wound in question – a straight, vertical tear, measuring 58mm in length, cutting through the centre left side of the specimen. The edges of the fissure are dotted with 25 small pinholes, suggesting stitching; but this wound never healed, and these punctures marks were not made with therapeutic intentions.

In fact, the skin has been pinned in this manner as part of the preservation process. As the skin dries, it shrinks, causing it to wrinkle and warp. This can be avoided by pinning out the skin whilst it’s still soft and pliable, thus retaining a smooth, undistorted surface once fully dried. Some shrinkage will nevertheless occur around the pins, resulting in a characteristic ‘frilling’ along the outer edges of the skin; this effect can also be all seen in the wound above. Examining the tear more closely, it appears very straight and smooth-edged, suggesting that the cut was made with a sharp implement, such as a blade. The pinholes and the absence of any signs of healing indicate that this ‘wound’ was either sustained not long before death, or that the skin was damaged postmortem.

Tears and damage to the skin are not uncommon in the collection; there are many examples in which the tattoos are not preserved in their entirety. Particularly in the case of soldiers, who may have suffered extensive – and fatal – injuries, it is easy to imagine that the collection of intact tattoos would often have been impossible.

Tattooed human skin (Science Museum object no. A544).
Photograph © Gemma Angel, courtesy of the Science Museum, London.

Another interesting quality of this tattooed skin is its readily identifiable body-location. As I handle the skin, my observations lead me to conclude that it was once part of a lower arm; it roughly matches the length of my own arm up to the elbow, and the lower, rounded portion is very suggestive of a hand. On laying the skin over my own hand, I notice a pattern of wrinkling and gathering consistent with knuckles, corresponding with the spacing of my fingers. Viewed with a back-light source, I see that these areas of skin are much thinner, as might be expected over the knuckles. There is also typical lining in horizontal bands across the back of the wrist, and the skin has shrunk and wrinkled in the fleshy space between the forefinger and thumb. The positioning of the digits suggests that this was the left arm.

You can read more about the tattoos on this specimen here.

© Life & 6 Months, 2012.

Dimensions: A747 h137 x w88mm x d1.5mm; A754 h144mm x w86mm x d2mm*

*Depth measurements are given at their thickest points.

Date: c.1830-1900

Of all the popular tattoo motifs, sailors’ tattoos are amongst the most iconic within Western culture, going back at least two hundred years. Indelible images bound up with seafaring life – ships ‘Homeward Bound’, fouled anchors, nautical stars, mermaids and creatures of the sea, the heart pierced by a dagger – all these designs are familiar, holding common symbolic currency for the tattooed and the non-tattooed alike. From Hermann Melville’s 1851 classic Moby Dick, to 2003 Hollywood blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean, the sailors’ tattoo has long captured the wider cultural imagination. The Wellcome Collection contains many examples of the typical sailors’ tattoos mentioned above. However, there is one particular sailor tattoo that has remained relatively ‘hidden’ from public view.

A pair of tattooed eyes. Preserved human skin (Science Museum Object no.s A747 & A754).
Photograph © Gemma Angel, courtesy of the Science Museum, London.

The two tattoos pictured above presented an interesting interpretative challenge when I first came across them. Catalogued and stored separately, no comparisons or connection had previously been made between the two, and yet both samples were so strikingly similar that I immediately suspected that they must have come from the same body.

Analysing the condition of the skin and the tattoos more closely revealed useful clues as to exactly which part of the body they may have come from. When handling them, I found the skin to be hard, non-pliable and unusually thick. Turning the skin over, the reverse side reveals a textured pattern of rounded depressions. This ‘dimpling’ is caused by relatively large adipose cells, which have left an impression in the connective tissue, or fascia, as the skin has dried – suggesting that this skin has been removed from a fleshy area of the body such as the buttocks. Both skins are also exceptionally hairy, covered with a layer of short, curly-ish hair. The tattoos are almost identical in style and scale, and appear to form a pair. Each skin has one large eye, with short eyelashes and thick eyebrows. When placed side by side, the orientation of the eyebrows indicate that A754 is the left eye, and A747 the right eye. Given the scale of each eye, and that they have been collected as separate specimens, this further suggests that they came from the buttocks, where it would not have been possible to remove one continuous section of skin which preserved both tattoos intact.

Detail showing thick hair coverage on the skin surface (left), and the pattern of rounded depressions on the reverse of the skin (right). Click to enlarge.
Photograph © Gemma Angel, courtesy of the Science Museum, London.

Though tattoos such as these would have largely remained hidden by clothing during life, there are nevertheless historical references to this particular tattoo motif. Known as the ‘King of Tattooists’ and a highly successful early professional, British tattooist George Burchett (1872-1953) relates this encounter in his memoirs:

A sailor breezed in, a tall, strapping boy, fresh from a long voyage to the Far East. He just wanted two eyes tattooed. Two bright blue eyes like his own. That seemed simple enough. I told him it would not take long and mentioned the fee he would have to pay. The boy looked round, went to the couch and let down his bell-bottom trousers. ‘I want the eyes tattooed on my buttocks; one on each cheek and looking straight ahead.’ It took me a moment to recover. ‘Why on earth do you want two eyes glaring out of your bottom?’ I asked. ‘To be able to see what’s happening behind my back,’ he replied. ‘Some sauce, you wouldn’t be able to see much when you were sitting down,’ I told him.[1]

Whilst there is certainly an element of bawdy humour behind this design, authors Scutt and Gotch suggest that such motifs ‘probably sprang from naive superstition, akin to warding off the evil eye.’[2] A surgeon captain and dermatologist in the Royal Navy, Ronald Scutt describes the eyes-on-the-buttocks tattoo as ‘not uncommon’, and reproduces two photographic examples in his book Art, Sex and Symbol, one of which is shown below.

Photograph from R.W.B Scutt & Christopher Gotch, ‘Art, Sex and Symbol. The Mystery of Tattooing’
(1986), p.101.

Contemporary examples of this kind of tattoo can still be found, as a quick Google search will reveal. But what is perhaps more surprising, is that this motif goes back much further than the 19th century, when the sailor tattoo became something of a trope within popular culture.

The image below shows the 1653 engraved frontispiece from John Bulwer’s rather fantastically titled Anthropometamorphosis: Man Transform’d, or the Artificial Changeling. Historically presented, in the mad and cruel Gallantry, foolish Bravery, ridiculous Beauty, filthy Fineness, and loathesome Loveliness of most Nations, fashioning & altering their Bodies from the Mould intended by Nature. With a Vindication of the Regular Beauty and Honesty of Nature, and an Appendix of the Pedigree of the English Gallant. The frontispiece depicts various peoples of the world, their bodies modified according to cultural tradition, including tattoos, scarification, earlobe stretching and piercing. Most intriguing, perhaps, is the figure in the foreground second from the left, who can be clearly seen to have a pair of eyes tattooed on his buttocks.

Frontispiece to John Bulwer’s Anthropometamorphosis: Man Transform’d, or, The Artificial Changeling (1653)

© Life & 6 Months, 2012

Dimensions: h258mm x w123mm x d0.4mm

Date: c.1850-1920

Tattooed Human Skin (Science Museum object no. A670). Photograph © Gemma Angel, courtesy of the Science Museum, London.

The image above shows an example of the iconic dagger-through-the-heart tattoo. Positioned over the left side of the chest above the heart for maximum symbolic effect, this design often features the effect seen above, in which the blade appears to pierce through the nipple. The design may or may not include a hand gripping the dagger, or the addition of falling drops of blood; but in all cases this tattoo is intended to symbolize betrayal in love, or a broken heart, and is still a popular motif today.

The tattoo pictured here was produced using a hand-poking technique, in which a bundle of hand-held needles dipped in ink are inserted into the skin, building up the design in a series of individual dots. The hand-poking technique is extremely difficult to master, but would have been the only method available to soldiers and sailors prior to the invention of the electric tattoo machine in 1890. Even after this time, it would have been common for men of the armed forces to tattoo one another in this manner in barracks or on board ship, using whatever materials were available to hand. The amateur skill of the tattooist is readily visible in the example above, indicated by the variation of ink-depth in the skin. Should the ink not penetrate deeply enough during tattooing, the healing process and gradual fading will lead to broken areas within the design. Conversely, if the ink is introduced too deeply, it will ‘bleed’ into the surrounding tissue, resulting in a characteristically fuzzy or ‘beaded’ look (also known as tattoo ‘blow-out’).

The skin itself is also interesting; amongst the thinnest in the collection, it is very brittle and non-pliable, with an undulating surface. The uppermost corner is curled back, which may indicate that it was not sufficiently dried before being unpinned from its support. Particularly unusual is the nipple, which is raised in a convex bubble, standing approximately 7mm above the surface. This could in fact have been deliberate – the nipple may have been ‘pushed out’ and stuffed during the drying process in order to maintain its shape. Dark red capillaries visibly streak the surface beneath the nipple. The skin is almost entirely translucent, with the exception of a conspicuous white patch at the lower right corner. This is the result of desquamation, or ‘skin-slip’, suggesting that decomposition was already underway by the time that this tattoo was collected.

The photograph below reveals both the protruding nipple and the fragile transparency of the skin.

Tattooed Human Skin (Science Museum object no. A670). Photograph © Gemma Angel, courtesy of the Science Museum, London.

© Life & 6 Months

– Susan Sontag

The connection between mortality and tattooing has frequently come up as a theme in my research. If, as Sontag writes, photographing people necessarily involves us in their mortality, can a similar claim be made for tattooing? It seems to me that both the painful nature of the process, and the permanence of the tattoo, share similar affinities with death and the passage of time as the photograph. Both the tattoo and the photograph are attempts to record experience, to render permanent some transient moment of our lives. Whilst a photograph may last a hundred years, tattoos usually die with us; though of course these too may also be ‘sliced out’, preserved chemically and frozen in time.

The tattoo is a memory etched in flesh – a memento which, at the very least, stands as a reminder of the very process of becoming tattooed, of the events and thoughts that led to the decision to undergo the needle and permanently change the landscape of the body. The pain, wounding, healing, and permanence; all these things combine to reassure us of our corporeality, our fragility. The experience of being tattooed reminds us that we are alive. It is an extension of the skin’s innate ability to register and record life events, to sense and feel and connect us intimately to those around us; mapping out our experience in scars, wrinkles, lines, ink. The tattoo differs from the natural wear of age only in the conscious act of its inscription.

One of the most readily apparent links between the tattoo and mortality can be seen in the memorial tattoo, which is typically acquired by an individual seeking to commemorate the life of a loved one. In this case, the tattoo provides a kind of corporeal anchor with which to fix emotional experience and the memory of a person lost; sometimes even incorporating part of the deceased themselves, through adding cremated remains to tattoo ink. But it is the experience of our own mortality and tattooing which interests me – a union that finds particular expression in the memento mori tattoo. A quick Google search will attest to the popularity of this particular tattoo motif. Styles and inspiration for these kinds of tattoos comes from many pictorial traditions, including the vanitas tableau and Mexican Día de los Muertos imagery. Recently, I came across a contemporary example of a memento mori tattoo with a particularly interesting visual source: the Bills of Mortality of 1665. Appropriately, the tattoo belongs to Sarah, a History of Medicine research student in London.

Speaking about her decision to have this particular tattoo, Sarah revealed that for her, the memento mori was a particularly life-affirming motif:

I had it done the week before I turned 30. In part it was mocking, because I’d always felt 30 was going to be an ominous milestone, but in the event it turned out being the opposite of what I’d anticipated in my early to mid-20s. In fact, lots of things in my life seemed to be coming together (including the PhD funding, which made a history of medicine theme seem particularly emblematic!). I’d struggled with a lot through my 20s, and to me the memento mori became an emblem of survival. I’ve always found cemeteries and memorials of similar kinds both powerful and strangely comforting: in perhaps a reverse of the traditional religious sense, it’s always seemed to me that the proximity of death can often serve as a reminder that life is worth living. I think for a long time I’d expected to think the opposite when I turned 30, so it was nice to pass through it in hope.

Sarah’s memento mori tattoo (lower back) Photograph © Gemma Angel, 2012

For me, one of the most intriguing things about the Wellcome Collection tattoos is that all of them, in some way, may be considered to be memorial tattoos. Even those that were not explicitly conceived by their bearers as memento mori tattoos, may become so for those who view them today. As fragments of the long-lost lives of others, like photographs, they implicate us in their mortality, and remind us of our own.

Do you have a memento mori tattoo? Please send me your images and stories, detailing where, when and why you chose the particular design to gemma.angel.09@ucl.ac.uk, and I will publish as many as possible on my blog! (Please note that photographs must be your own, all photo credits will be acknowledged).

For more information on the practicalities of using cremated remains in tattooing, visit the Death Reference Desk.

© Life & 6 Months, 2012

With one of these mirrors in my hand I looked amongst the urns, thinking meanwhile, ‘Maybe chance has preserved amongst these remains some part of the dust from the fine eyes of a Greek or a Roman lady, who so many centuries ago surveyed herself in this mirror…’ Nor could I restrain my desire to touch the ashes of an urn on which a female figure was being mourned. I felt it gently, with great feeling…I pressed the grain of dust between my fingers tenderly, just as her best friend might once have grasped her hand.[1]

It may surprise many today that de la Roche was allowed to handle museum objects at all, but in fact this was not unusual in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This couldn’t be further away from the experience of today’s museum visitors, who, ever under the watchful eye of security guards and staff, are constantly reminded by museum signage: Do Not Touch. The museum has, over time, become a primarily visual site. As a ‘distance’ sense, vision tends to encourage a certain degree of detachment from the objects that we observe. Touch, on the other hand, physically connects us with our material environment and thus provides a greater immediacy of experience. It allows us both to better know objects through manual exploration of their material properties, and offers a more emotive or intimate experience of the things around us, as illustrated in de la Roche’s account.

Throughout my research, I have adopted a tactile approach as a particularly apt method of investigation of the Wellcome Collection tattooed skins. First, I am struck by their visual characteristics. On looking, the skin may at first appear as a flat parchment surface, an impression that is reinforced by the presence of the tattoo. But whilst I may initially perceive the tattooed skin as a surface – fragile, papery, and brittle – my visual apprehension of its texture compels me to verify these impressions manually. On picking the skin up between my fingers, testing its weight and pliability, turning it over in my hand and observing its grooves and contours, it may defy my initial expectations – it may be tough, bark-like and opaque, or leathery, soft and powdery. It is not a flat surface but a multidimensional object which reveals its human origins in an array of surface features such as hairs, punctures, capillaries, fascia, scars, lesions, and of course, the tattoo.

Handling these objects does more than just reveal their textural complexity, however – it also provides clues as to how and under what conditions they were collected and preserved. For instance, the presence of death is sometimes texturally apparent in the surface of the skin, as can be seen in this example:

Tattooed human skin (Object no. A576), showing rigor mortis in the arrector pili muscles of the skin.
Photograph © Gemma Angel, courtesy of the Science Museum, London.

What appears here as ‘goose-flesh’ – a skin sensation associated with both surface feelings of cold and visceral fear or horror – is frozen in the moment of death through the speedy preservation of the excised fragment. What I am actually seeing and feeling as I examine this skin is the presence of a very familiar living skin-sensation – except in this case it is caused by rigor mortis of the arrector pili muscles in the dermis. My own skin prickles at the thought. This specimen was likely removed in haste, soon after death and under rudimentary surgical conditions. Thus the texture reveals a trace of the death of the individual, whilst evoking a profoundly visceral response through my tactile engagement with the skin itself. I ask myself who this person was, what life he led, why did he choose to mark himself with these tattoos? The skin ceases to be a mere ‘object’. In a sense, touching brings the subject back to life.

---

[1] Cited in Classen, Constance: The Book of Touch, (2005) pp.227-8.

© Life & 6 Months