Researcher reveals lost story of the “linchpin” of the 20th century tattoo industry

A Swiss physicist and the mid-20th century underground gay scene were instrumental in creating the foundations of the modern-day tattoo industry according to new research.

Dr Matt Lodder has used previously unseen archive material to reveal, for the first time, the true influence of Hans Rudolf (Rudi) Inhelder and his groundbreaking Tattoo Club of America.

He argues that Rudi became “this absolute linchpin” in the development of the industry and the direction it took in the latter half of the 20th century.

Writing in his latest book, Tattoos: The Untold History of Modern Art, Dr Lodder also reveals how critical the underground gay scene was in the creation of social networks that underpinned the industry.

It is the first book since the 1950s to explore the history of the tattoo industry from its origins in the 18th century when the first self-proclaimed tattoo artist – a house burglar arrested in London – can be found in historical records of 1719.

However, it was Rudi’s story that really captured Dr Lodder’s imagination after a 20-year search for the Swiss physicist’s archive eventually bore fruit.

Dr Lodder worked with Paul King, who runs the Body Piercing Archive in San Francisco, and Manfred Kohrs, of the German Tattoo History Institute, to piece together the surviving traces of Rudi’s influence and finally locate what had become of a vast trove of materials.

Rudi, a tattoo fan, had amassed Europe’s largest collection of documents relating to the international tattoo industry. Although much was destroyed after his death in 2003, Dr Lodder traced what remained of his meticulous record keeping, including business cards and photographs.

It revealed a remarkable story.

“Rudi became fascinated by tattooing after reading the last published history of the industry, Pierced Hearts and True Love by Hanns Ebensten, and when he came to London in 1955, it was Ebensten who connected him with tattoo enthusiasts and artists,” Dr Lodder explained.

After travelling to America, where his services as a physicist were needed in the Cold War defence industry, Rudi longed for the “camaraderie, connection, and companionship of tattooers and tattooed people that he had found in London,” Dr Lodder added.

Despite tattooing being illegal in New York, in 1963 Rudi founded the Tattoo Club of America, which, although ultimately short-lived, by 1964 had 250 members, mostly men, and was regularly publishing tattoo newsletters.

As well as giving artists and fans the opportunity to meet, the Club, which collected information about interests from its members, also served as a clandestine match-making service for the many gay men, like Rudi, who wanted to meet other gay men and swap tattoo photos.

“Rudi’s network encompassed the whole spectrum of the industry. Members spanned conservative, battle-hardened military tattooers through to radical and queer experimenters. His innocently presented networking provided a way for queer men to meet likeminded others from outside their local towns in relative safety.

“Though he wasn’t a tattoo artist, Rudi would become this absolute linchpin. He connected European, British, and American tattooing, and was instrumental in friendships and working relationships between mainstream and rather conservative tattooers and a diverse group of subcultural tattoo and body-piercing enthusiasts.

“Those links underpinned the direction western tattooing would take over the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, and the interconnections between tattooing and the emergent body-piercing industry,” said Dr Lodder.

Tattoos: The Untold History of Modern Art is published by Yale University Press.

Header image of the Flame from the Earth tattoo, by Davy Jones, on Fakir Musafar, c.1964, courtesy of the Body Piercing Archive.