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Lady
Viola
Many
old-school tattooists
recalled seeing
their first tattooed
person in the sideshow,
as the circus sideshow
spread tattooing
from coast to coast
in America. They
admitted that this
had a major impact
on them choosing
the art of tattooing
for a livelihood.
The picture below
shows Lady Viola
posed with Fred
Clark, 1930s.
Lady Viola was one of those circus
troopers causing a stir in the
tattoo world and the outdoor amusement
business. The Bowery-Coney Island-Brooklyn
tattooist Frank Graf tattooed her
in the 1920s.
In a Bob Shaw interview in 1989,
Bob remembers the first time he
saw Lady Viola in St. Louis, MO.
"The fellow who did Lady Viola's
work was way ahead of his time.
If you ever can get one of those
photos and blow it up, you'll see
all those little flower designs
have heads in 'em, that's the popular
people of the time, like Charlie
Chaplin and Tom Mix. He was the
first person I saw really do portraits;
he did presidents Wilson, Washington
and Lincoln across her chest. You
looked at them and immediately
knew who it was."
Lady Viola did have a very special
suit of tattoos, often being billed
as "The Most Beautiful Tattooed
Woman in the World." Along with
popular tattoo figures of the time,
she had the United States Capitol
on her back and the Statue of Liberty
and Rock of Ages on her legs. During
the outdoor season she worked with
the likes of the Ringling Bros.
Circus (1932) and the winter months
found her in dime museums like
Gorman's in Philadelphia (1930s).
Lady Viola spent decades in the
show business world and was still
working with the Thomas Joyland
Show at the age of 73! Many photos
and pitch cards of Viola's career
have survived. Fred Clark, a mid-west
tattooist who did photography as
a hobby, took some of my favorite
ones. He took many beautiful photos
of Lady Viola and several of them
included Clark and his Amund Dietzel-built
traveling tattoo case.
Although Lady Viola made her name
as a tattoo attraction, like many
other female attractions (including
Betty Broadbent) she also did some
tattooing. During the circus season
attractions would be required to
do a certain number of performances
so there was not much time for
them to tattoo.
During the winter months Betty
Broadbent would work arcades as
an attraction/tattooist. So probably
during the winter stints with the
dime museums, Viola would have
time to do some tattooing. One
of the last photos of Viola showed
her posed with a tattooing set-up.
Tattoo Archive © 2003
See a poster of Lady Viola in our online store.
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