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Pin
Ups
Anyplace
you might travel
throughout the
world, the pin-up
is perhaps the
most classic tattoo
design found on
a tattoo shop's
wall. You might
ask, what's the
difference between
a pin-up and a
nude? Is it attitude,
style or posture?
Is a woman sexier
partially clothed
(like the pin-up
girl) or with no
clothing at all
(like the nude)?
Webster's dictionary
describes the pin-up
as, "A picture,
especially of a
sexually attractive
person, that is
displayed on a
wall." Similarly,
a nude is described
as "An unclothed
human figure, especially
an artistic representation".
Maybe that's the
difference. Pin-ups
are displayed on
walls in barracks
and garages, while
nudes are hung
in frames on walls
in galleries and
museums. Probably
the real difference
is the way people
view them! 
In the early part of the 20th century
the U. S. Navy official manual
stated that: "a cause for rejection
(from the service) is obscene,
offensive or indecent tattooing".
This was the death to many naked
girls tattooed on recruits who
had to have them covered with clothing
if they wanted to enlist.
Following is a NY Times article
from 1944. "Charles Wagner's
contribution to the war - tattooing
skirts on nude figures ornamenting
the arms and chests of would be
sailors wasn't sufficient to ward
off a $10.00 fine yesterday in
Bowery Court, where he was found
guilty of failing to sterilize
his needles. Wagner, 67 years old
and a Chinatown institution for
forty years, pointed out that many
a marine or sailor now at grip
with the enemy would have been
rejected because of the crude 'art'
on their bodies". The photograph
below shows Charlie Wagner at work.
In a 1977 interview, Bert Grimm
accurately summed up what he thought
men were looking for with pin-ups. "They
wanted the girls to have enormous
but shapely and protruding breasts.
They wanted something to turn them
on. They wanted erotic, not to
say obscene, designs of women of
all races and occupations, including
ones of Red Cross nurses, the Statue
of Liberty, and an oversexed Amelia
Earhart. Some men had nude hula
girls strategically placed on their
biceps and when the guy moved his
arm muscle in a certain way, the
gals hips would wiggle and her
breasts would bounce. Sometimes
the guy would whistle a tune to
go along with the dance. I used
to have about 15 sheets of girlie
stencils hanging up, now I have
only two. I took the other ones
down because they don't sell".
The whole tone of this 1977 interview
appeared to indicate that pin-ups
were on their way out. In the tattoo
business today, even with our politically
correct climate, pin-ups are still
popular. Thanks to the renewed
interest in old-school designs,
especially Joe Lieber's and Sailor
Jerry's work, the pin-up has been
rediscovered. Several other tattooists
influenced Jerry in his pin-up
design. On stencil rubs sent to
Paul Rogers, Jerry credited Pinky
Yun, Ole Hansen and Doc Forbes
as the source of pin-up designs
that he then reworked into his
own style. This style distilled
the human form into the bare minimum
of lines and is still copied, and
perhaps even worshipped today.
© Tattoo
Archive © 2003
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