The guy's name is Harry Lawson, right?

Recently looked at a sheet that was unidentified. It's early and nicely drawn. We wanted to try and identify the author, if possible.

There's a date; May 20th 1930 written in pencil and erased under the eagle wings of the crossed equator design. Which caused us to look further. Scotty in the Lift Trucks Lab found another erased set of letters at the bottom of the sheet.  Looked like "...rry V Law...n.  He then looked at it a different way by flipping colors on the computer to a negative. Almost like a blueprint. You can see it clearly in person, not so much in the photo (apologies.) But you get the idea. All falls into place and says in all caps; HARRY V LAWSON.

Not a bad way to check for signatures on a sheet. Flipping some colors will work better than others. Old computers sometimes have a color matrix rotation system button. On newer models, try Photoshop or iPhoto and swap out one color for another.
 
One tell was the unique style of feathered shadows under the feet of the women. A black line with fade cast. This is on other Lawson's in a book. Shows up here on the ukulele girl and pirate lass giving stylistic evidence, along with the block letter signature, that sheet is most likely by Harry V. Lawson.  

Maybe another reason to dig back into into the slag heap of unidentified tattoo flash sheets.

 Click image to see enlarged. block letters: HARRY V LAWSON

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Aloha, Baby

Here's a sheet of tattoo flash that surfaced at an obscure auction. Story was that it originally came through a swap meet in Northern California, not sure what one but maybe the now defunct Marin City. Which was a very cool place where lots of hippies would set up selling stuff from wealthy guys like the Jefferson Airplane musicians. Phil Ochs widow was there a lot. Kind of sad actually but she had nice things for sale and was a nice person. A well heeled town with good items not just sand candles and yarn dream catchers but expensive bikes, early electronic gear and mint Bill Graham Fillmore posters.
Anyway the auctioneer said the guy who owned the sheet of flash remembered that he got it from Albert Morse. Mr. Morse was a famous comic book artists' lawyer (don't mention his name to comic book guys, as they will spit and fume.)  Unhappy dealings! They cry.

Albert Morse traveled the country and documented many tattooists. A hero in this world as he preserved history, wrote The Tattooists and had a great tattoo art show at the Oakland Museum of Art 25 years ago.  Brought tattoo panels out of back rooms onto museum walls and the public eye.  

We originally thought this piece might be Owen Jensen's as the girl and peacock is something he drew occasionally.  But the fine line drawing just isn't his.  It kind of looks Californian even though it says Aloha Hawaii. Beautifully done, it and now positively identified as an Earl Brown sheet.

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Dainty Dotty and Owen Jensen

Owen Jensen and Dainty Dotty: Owen Jensen was born in 1891 in Pleasant Grove, Utah. As a young man he worked in the railroad shop in Ogden, Utah. Jensen has said that in 1911 he walked 12 miles to Provo to see the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show and that was where he saw his first tattooed man. Owen Jensen got his first tattoo in 1913 from Bob Hodge on the Lucky Bill Show. Because he had skills as a machinist, Jensen was offered a part time job working in a machine shop making tattooing machines. He was interested in how the tattoo machines worked, and soon he became a tattooist. Jensen enlisted in World War 1 serving overseas. Jensen tattooed while in the service, but he learned how to draw flash later. When he returned to Pleasant Grove, Jensen built himself a trunk tattoo outfit and hit the road. In the following years, Jensen tattooed at several shows and in cities in Colorado and Wyoming. In 1923 Jensen headed for Los Angeles and when he first arrived the fleet was out so he took a foundry job. Owen Jensen married Dainty Dotty, a famous circus fat lady. It is said he also tattooed her. Weighing in at 600 pounds, Dotty was not considered the largest woman on record, but she was perhaps the largest female tattooist. Dotty died from a heart ailment in December 1952.

On July 5, 1976, some young punks attacked Jensen, sticking a knife in his back and badly beating then robbing him. Owen Jensen never recovered from that beating. He died shortly afterward.

Let Us Now Praise Dainty Dotty and All Circus Women

 

We love Dainty Dotty and we feel she loved us. Just look at that smile.

Through exhaustive research we believe that Dotty was indeed the Fat Lady sitting next to Major Mite in this famous story about the Rubber Man and Mae, the Tattooed Lady.

Herewith and paraphrasing Albert Parry's, 1933 " Tattoo, Secrets of a Strange Art as Practised among the Natives of the United States."

While on tour with a circus in the summer of 1927, the India Rubber Man fell in love. Professor Henri, in real life Clarence H. Alexander of Ypsilanti, Michigan could stretch his neck seven inches, his arms and legs twelve inches, He was fourty three years old, a professional freak since he was twenty three. His object of attention was Mae, a tattooed gal just twenty, a trooper less than two years. Their associates called them "Tattooed Mae and Rubber November," sadly noting that Mae lacked a trooper's psychology. She was a spectator, the Rubber Man was to her, not a fellow player and possible life mate, but a freak. While Henri Alexander was in love with her tattooings she was repelled by his deformity. She was frightened when he used his elastic magic to pass love notes to her over the heads of the fat lady (Dotty?) and the midget (Major Mite?) sitting between them on the platform.

Could this be Dotty's first exposure to the magic allure of tattoos?  She soon after gave up the fat lady career path and took up electric tattooing. A seemingly more gentile profession. She started in Detroit where she met and subsequently married Owen Jensen. Together they moved west to Sunny California, famously establishing themselves as tattoo artists on the Pike in Long Beach.

Winning the Fat Lady

Here's Dotty, the tattoo artist. We have always been fascinated with the smiling big woman in the old photos.  One of her designs depicted a woman with butterfly wings floating as if in liberation.  She also had her day with the classic "Put her ol' foot through me heart, matey"  tattoo image.  Could this have been in sympathy for Major Mite? In 1942, Dainty Dotty, who would be Owen Jensen's future wife, worked with Major Mite (world's smallest man) at the Ringling Brothers Circus. Although they were on the circuit together, "America's Greatest Individual Attraction" apparently never won over the big lady. Major Mite was still with Ringling throughout the 1940's until dejected, he slumped back to Portland Oregon to be near his family.

More of this story has to yet be uncovered. Its hard to say if Dainty Dotty knew Owen Jensen in 1942. He was in traveling back and forth between Norfolk, VA and Michigan, were she she met him. By 1944, she was working at the Palace of Wonders in Detroit as a "fat gal." She probably grew tired of folks pointing at her and laughing. Rightly so. This would seem to be a tough road to go down. She might have watched the dapper tattooist and thought this looked a little more genteel than her current employment. In 1945, Dot and Owen married, loaded up the black, five window Ford coupe and joined the great migration for the sunshine state, California. 

Major Mite letterhead with tattoo eagle drawing on back.  

Keep tuned for more on Dotty. Thanks to Carmen Nyssen for her research.