Tattoo Lexicon - by Dirk-Boris Rödel
Native American portraits, or more correctly portraits of American Natives, have always been part of the repertoire of tattoo artists. In the albums of templates by Christian Wahrlich, Herbert Hoffmann and other German tattoo pioneers of the last century, they can still be seen in the classic traditional style with thick black outlines and bright colors - of course, there was no other tattoo style until the 1970s.
This changed very slowly and tentatively in the late 80s and early 90s; tattoo artists became more experimental and with the development of the fine-line style by tattoo artists such as Jack Rudy in the USA, some also ventured cautiously in the direction of more realistic portraits, even if not yet in the quality and realism that you can get these tattoos today.
The photographs taken by the American Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868 - 1952) of Native Americans from numerous tribes made a very important contribution to this development. Curtis, who began an apprenticeship as a photographer at the age of 17 and worked in various photo studios, began to focus entirely on the photographic documentation of North American Indians from the age of 27. One of his first models was Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé.
On behalf of the banker J.P. Morgan, Curtis began work in 1906 on an enormous photographic documentation of the American First Nations, which ultimately led to 20 illustrated books with 1500 photographs; in total, Curtis had taken an incredible 40,000 photos of members of 80 different Indian tribes. In addition to pictorial documents, this also resulted in language and music documents and reports on rituals and celebrations such as the Sundance ritual of the Blackfeet or the potlatch festivals of the Canadian Kwakiutl.
In the 1930s, the J.P. Morgan Company sold the rights to Curtis' work to a Boston publishing house, where his work was forgotten for decades. It was not until the 1970s that the photographic documents were rediscovered and reprocessed.
The expressive photos by Edward Curtis gradually appeared just in time to serve as motifs and templates for tattoo artists worldwide. The weather-beaten, rough and wrinkled faces of Native American chiefs and warriors, their imposing feathers and elaborately decorated clothing were ideal for tattoo artists who wanted to try their hand at the newly learned fine shading technique, which differed greatly from the very robust shading of traditional motifs. Curtis' photography technique, which produced superbly lit images with great light-dark contrast, was practically made for this new style of tattooing.
Even today, the illustrated book "The Indians of North America", which was recompiled and republished by Cologne-based Taschen-Veerlag in 2005, is still almost a must-read for every realistic tattoo artist.
Text: Dirk-Boris Rödel
Graphic: Jonas Bachmann
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