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ARTIST Frank Howard
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PAGES 48
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BINDING Hardcover
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SIZE 6.25" x 9.25"
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WEIGHT 0.55 lbs
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CONTENT Watercolor paintings
This book pulls together more than twenty original watercolor paintings by pioneering tattoo artist Frank Howard (1857–1925), a larger-than-life figure who, at the height of his career, ran the biggest tattoo shop and tattoo supply company in the United States. These vibrant designs - writhing dragons, geishas, and demon heads - weren't made to be framed or hung in a museum. They were meant for skin, built to travel the streets, the seas, and the world.
The paintings have a remarkable chain of ownership. They were found among the possessions of Harold "Lefty" Liberty, the last tattoo artist working in Boston before the state outlawed tattooing in 1962. Lefty inherited them, along with other works, from his father, Edward "Dad" Liberty, who began tattooing professionally around 1916 at a penny arcade just a block away from Frank Howard in the heart of Boston's Scollay Square, the city's raucous entertainment district. According to Bert Grimm, when Liberty broke into the business, he purchased his first equipment directly from Howard himself.
It's fitting that Liberty would become his successor. After Howard's death in 1925. Dad Liberty moved into his Court Street shop, acquiring many of Howard's personal effects, equipment, and even original painted window shades. The watercolors reproduced here are painted on the same material as those shades, and were likely bound into a book for customers to browse. They are a fragile but extraordinary survival from the earliest days of Boston tattooing.
In the age of rediscovery, documenting these works is essential, not only to honor Frank Howard's place in tattoo history, but to give artists and enthusiasts a touchstone for identifying his work. Howard, a consummate showman and self-promoter, would surely be pleased that his art continues to inspire.
