Issue 11

Tattooed By Bert Grimm

Images: Tattoo Archive 

The Golden Age of Tattoo. Unless you’ve been living in a van down by the river (and even then, there’s a pretty good chance some scrawny, full-sleeved indie band guys would be crawling all over your pad for their next CD cover photo shoot), you can’t help but notice that the most permanent of all fads has gripped popular culture faster than the foam trucker hat movement – but without the same ease of disposal. What was once reserved for a few select subcultures is now gaining broad acceptance, appeal and – we had to say it – permanence. 

But is tattoo culture really enjoying its “Golden Age” just because Sally Carrera sports a pinstripe tattoo right above her rear bumper? Is it all really flourishing as an artform since tattoo artists could throw tantrums and abuse clients on national television? 

We’d like to submit that the heyday of the American tattoo artist was embodied in a man who was probably known more for his showmanship than his talent as a tattooist, but was also dedicated to the calling in ways that are rarely seen these days. 

Bert Grimm was a tattooist the way all men of character found their ways in the world in the early days of the Twentieth Century – he was just meant to be. “I am the greatest tattoo artist in the world,” he would tell the souls who found themselves in one of his many shops. And, in an era when a shop earned its reputation from word of mouth rather than timeslot, Bert made damn-well sure he could back up his claim. 

Born in Portland, Oregon in 1900, a young Cecil Riordon spent much of his formative years hanging out in the Burnside Street tattoo shops of Sailor George Fosdick and Charlie Weston. In those early days of the American Indus- trial Revolution, the art of tattoo was far too exotic for the commoner and its practitioners took on ‘needle names’ so as not to shame the family. By 1914,  Riordon was tattooing and Bert Grimm was born. 

As with any culture not generally accepted as mainstream, history and lore can overlap and facts are sometimes based on a tale told over and over without too much variance. So be it. And so may it be with the life of Bert Grimm, but it just doesn’t matter. The adventures were his and now the stories belong to those of us who’ve been fortunate enough to acquire them… 

In 1916, young Grimm decided to move to where the action was. And at the time, it was Chicago. As the jewel of the Midwest, it was a beehive of activity – East met West, good times could replace hard and a man could make a name and fortune for himself in a town like that. Bert set up shop and got to work, tattooing the men (and women) of Chicago’s underworld. 

During Bert’s stay in Chicago, the Midwest was also a goldmine for traveling entertainment. In an era before truly accessible radio and long before television, the traveling circus and boxcar show were major sources of leisure-time activity. Since most of America’s population was still a rural one, folks rarely ventured further than 30 or so miles from the floor they were born on – about as far as a horse or Model T could comfortably take them in a day. So, if one were to make a living for one’s self in the entertainment industry, well then, one must go to where those entertainment dollars lay in wait. And that meant hittin’ the rails. As one of many features of a traveling circus, the sideshow was a venue where someone with a penchant for skin art could make a living showing off his or her collection. Commonly know as “attractions,” these men and women could easily dazzle a crowd waiting to enter the big show simply by revealing the hours they endured under the tattoo artist’s gun. As a show would ramble into a larger city, the promoter would jump off the train and seek out a local tattoo shop to find out who was spending the most time there and whether or not they’d be available for sideshow work. And so it happened that Bert Grimm found himself working for one of the most famous shows of the day: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. 

William F. Cody’s Wild West show afforded Bert the opportunity to hone his skills as a tattoo artist, but the experience did much more than that – it also taught him the value of showmanship. Bert would put himself on display as “The Tattooed Man” and sell souvenir tattoos immediately following his performance to a spell- bound crowd that wanted to take home a piece of the magic. Bert only spent a few months with the Wild West show before Buffalo Bill died, but it was enough to leave a lasting impression on him that would guarantee his place in American folklore. 

Bert spent some time traveling the countryside before settling again in St. Louis. There, he would build his tattoo business and his reputation for a good, clean tattoo in the Coleman Style (commonly referred to these days as “traditional”) and the uncanny ability to sell one to the most stubborn of passersby. 

It was during the first part of his three decades in St. Louis when Bert claimed to have tattooed his most infamous customers. Those were the Glory Days of the bank robber – when a guy with a Tommy Gun and a fast sedan was Robin Hood, The Pied Piper and Don Quixote all rolled into one. Flush with hard-earned cash, these characters would leave their remote hide-outs periodically for the closest city to indulge and reward themselves for a job well done. As the legend goes, it was during one of these trips to town that Bert had the opportunity to tattoo none other than Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. In an age when a typical tattoo could cost as little as $.10 for a small piece and as much as $300 for a full-body suit, it can only be imagined what the duo actually paid for their Bert Grimm originals. 

For the next 30 years in St. Louis, Bert would not only become well-known for the way he plied his trade, but also for the way he recorded it for posterity. Harboring a fondness for cameras and photography, Grimm helped develop the remote photo booth by setting up the contraptions in each of his tattoo shops. While he tattooed his customers, his wife Julie could be found operating the photo booth. His shops had more a feel of an arcade than a common tattoo parlor and because of this seemingly random conflagration of interests, there remains more recorded history of Bert Grimm’s work than almost any other early tattoo artist working in America. 

By 1956, Bert was advised by his doctor that he leave St. Louis for a climate that would have more pity on his ailing lungs. Knowing where he could literally breathe easier and set up shop in a town that would be full of potential customers, Bert set a course for Southern California’s Long Beach and the Nu Pike. “The Pike,” as it was commonly referred to, had been one of the other preeminent forms of pre-television entertainment in America. A pier in a beach town set up as a permanent amusement park was an extravagance accessible mainly to locals and sailors, but as that mid-century TV craze swept the nation, The Pike slowly fell out of favor with the masses who preferred Howdy Doody to the Cyclone Racer and a slightly seedier lot fell in by the time Bert set his bags down at his new place in town. 

But Bert was a showman. And the sailors who now made up the majority of the traffic running through the tattoo parlors on The Pike were low-hanging fruit. No sooner was the shingle hung over the door at Bert Grimm’s World Famous Tattoo than Bert was opening a second shop. And then another. And another. At one point, Bert had a total of five working tattoo shops on The Pike – as many as five artists in one shop and few as one working in a closet-sized parlor that was literally standing-room only for one customer at a time. By now, Bert had gained a reputation as not only an impressive tattooist, but for the entire Bert Grimm experience: story-telling and a personal fl air that was part barbershop, part sideshow and all heart. A customer under Bert’s machine could expect to be entertained by tales of past adventures while his style of line and whip-shading was so fast that Bert often tattooed his left hand with the needle coming off the customer’s skin. 

A few years later, in 1964, one of Bert’s protégés came to The Pike upon receiving a call from him. “You should come out here and take a look,” Bert said to Bob Shaw, “I think you’ll like what you see.” Bert was more than just a mentor to Bob – he had tattooed Bob’s arms in full sleeves by the time he was 14 years old and had been a close friend. Bert saw much of himself in the young tattooist and their bond spanned the years. Once Bob made the move to Long Beach, he would eventually buy several of Bert’s shops as he eventually made plans to move back to his beloved Oregon to enjoy retirement. By the mid-Seventies, Bert had made the decision to leave #22 Chestnut in Long Beach and head north to the small town of Seaside, Oregon to relax and enjoy the Golden Years near his boyhood home. But, as anyone who knew the man would wager, Bert couldn’t stay away from the craft. He was tattooing out of a small bedroom in his home to the tune of roughly ten customers every week. And he was doing it damn near till the day he died. At his funeral in 1985, there were attendees who had fresh tattoos in Bert’s well-known West Coast style – no more than a day or two old. 

The Golden Age of Tattoo was lived large and lived long by Bert Grimm. But it certainly didn’t start or end with him. The torch was passed to him by Fosdick and the spirit of August Coleman and he simply enriched every aspect of the artform before passing it on to worthy adherents like Shaw, Mahoney and others. Do the slingers working today know much about the craftsmanship, the showmanship and the friendship American Masters like Bert Grimm plied the trade with? There was a certain amount of mutual respect and elements of an exclusive society that never needed to be discussed between artist and customer. Has much of that been sacrificed on the altar of the Warholian Fifteen? One thing is for sure: Bert’s spirit is a much more powerful and permanent force than the temporary nature of today’s popular tattoo culture. 

For more on Bert Grimm and other legends of Tattoo, visit www.tattooarchive.com