Clayton Patterson and his wife Elsa began documenting and cultivating New York's illegal and underground tattoo culture, art and personalities in the mid-1980s. "In the Shadows- The People's History of New York City Underground Tattooing" is the record of their important effort.
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In The Shadows- The Underground Tattoo Years in New York- 1962-1997
- 600 Pages
- 8.5" x 11" Size / 21,59 x 27,94 cm
- 4 lbs / 1,8 Kgr
Clayton Patterson and his wife Elsa began documenting and cultivating the culture, art and personalities of illegal and underground tattooing in New York in the mid-1980s. "In the Shadows- The People's History of New York City Underground Tattooing" is the record of their important effort.
Rumours abound, but the practice of tattooing in New York was not outlawed in October 1961 for health reasons. It was banned for cultural reasons. To date, the New York Department of Health has no record of any substantiated complaints of infection caused by tattooing in or around 1961. In its decision, the New York State Appellate Division called tattooing "barbaric survival often associated with a morbid or abnormal personality". At a time of supposedly modernising attitudes, tattooing was identified by some rulers as a shameful pastime of the past that had to go.
Tattooing did not disappear in the city in 1961. On the contrary, tattooists and patrons adapted to the ban and looked for the best way to continue in the shadows with this unbearable art form. For 36 years, until the re-legalisation of tattooing in the city in 1997, the practice was reshaped by its new underground, countercultural and outsider mystique. Some tattooers, like Coney Island legend Brooklyn Blackie, retired and moved upstate. Others went underground; Freddie from Coney Island tattooed in Staten Island, Tony Polito and Mike Perfetto in Brooklyn, Angelo Scotto in the Bronx during the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s with an aura of tradition. During the 1970s, in the iconoclastic and avant-garde downtown Manhattan, tattoo artists Thom deVita, Mike Malone, Richard Tyler, Ruth Marten, Mike Bakaty, Cat and others tattooed an expanded lexicon of images from their studios in artists' lofts. For a few years in the early 1980s, saxophonist Bob Roberts tattooed a rock and roll clientele in his loft, a few blocks from the legendary Max's Kansas City nightclub, where he played with notable punk rock bands.
The book documents several notable underground tattoo shops in New York City that gambled on the odds that there would be few or no consequences for tattooing illegally. Among them is Jonathan Shaw and his influential shop Fun City Tattoo. Shaw operated out of the back room of a custom leather shop on E. 1st Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue in the East Village several years before the 1997 re-legalisation. He invited innovative friends from the tattoo world, such as Filip Leu, to do guest sessions in his shop, which improved the overall ambience of the illegal environment. Lori Levin and her jewellery shop New York Adorned are featured in the book. Located between E. 2nd and E. 3rd Streets on Second Avenue, the boutique's "backroom" area built a reputation in the pre-legalisation scene and invited talented and respected tattoo artists to do guest sessions. Timothy Hoyer, Marcus Pacheco, Sean Vasquez and CIV also cut their teeth in the New York underground scene and are featured in the book.
"In the Shadows- The People's history of New York City Underground Tattooing" documents the diverse voices and images of New York's irrepressible tattoo community who together represented the art and culture of tattooing that refused to fade away during the "shadow years". - Michael McCabe 2023
The book includes articles and photographs by Ed Hardy, Nick Schonberger, Eddy Portnoy, Carmen Nyssen, Marisa Kakoulas, Michael McCabe, Nick Bubash, Clayton Patterson, Mike Malone, Bill Heine, Ruth Martin, Kate Hellenbrand, Jonathan Shaw, Mehdi Matin, Mike Schweigert, Allison B. Siegel, Jennifer Blowdryer, Joe O'Sullivan, Diane Farris, Veronica Vera, Andrew "Zee" Sistrand, Shane Enholm, Christine Braunberger, Tattoo Dan, Patrick Kitzel, Dian Hanson, Daniel Lukes, Carlo McCormick, Alessandra DeBenedetti, Scott Machens, Erik La Prade, Kate Majarov, Roger Kaufman, Ethan Hill, Ron Kolm, Ari Roussimoff, A. J. Herold, John Wyatt, Efrain John Gonzales, Charles Gatewood, Wes Wood, Amy Dupcak, Stanley Stellar, Daniel Lukes, Sean Vasquez, Michelle Myles, Marcus Pacheco, Timothy Hoyer, Rob White, Lorraine Bautista, Jose 'Cochise' Quiles, Howie Abrams and many more.
