The Tattoo Artist
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
Norman Rockwell’s naturalistic style, charming characterizations, and easily legible narratives of small-town life made him America’s most beloved illustrator. While his images are generally perceived as straightforward reflections of American life, they frequently demonstrate greater complexity. The Tattoo Artist, for example, subtly alludes to contemporary aesthetics—in particular, modernism’s interest in decorative patterns and the flatness of the picture plane—by suspending the figures in front of a wallpaper-like background of tattoo designs.
Caption
Norman Rockwell American, 1894–1978. The Tattoo Artist, 1944. Oil on canvas, 43 1/8 x 33 1/8 in. (109.5 x 84.1 cm) Frame: 49 x 39 x 3 in. (124.5 x 99.1 x 7.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the artist, 69.8. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 69.8_SL1.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
The Tattoo Artist
Date
1944
Medium
Oil on canvas
Classification
Dimensions
43 1/8 x 33 1/8 in. (109.5 x 84.1 cm) Frame: 49 x 39 x 3 in. (124.5 x 99.1 x 7.6 cm)
Signatures
Signed lower right: "Norman / Rockwell"
Credit Line
Gift of the artist
Accession Number
69.8
Rights
© artist or artist's estate
Copyright for this work may be controlled by the artist, the artist's estate, or other rights holders. A more detailed analysis of its rights history may, however, place it in the public domain. The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org. If you wish to contact the rights holder for this work, please email copyright@brooklynmuseum.org and we will assist if we can.
Frequent Art Questions
I love this!
This is an especially unique work by the artist Norman Rockwell who was an American painter and illustrator. Normally, his paintings show figures in realistic space and yet here we see the artist and his "canvas" floating above/within the tattoo-laden background of the work.I've moved on to the next gallery and came upon the Norman Rockwell painting, I adore his work and I am so happy to get to see a painting in real life and not just reprint!
That Rockwell painting was only recently added to the gallery installation! Fun, right? We really do see them more often in reproduction, as they were designed to be seen but it's so much fun to see the actual work of the artist's hand in front of us here. Rockwell found the equipment and props for this Post cover in a tattoo shop on the Bowery in New York City. One of his friends, a fellow illustrator, posed as the seated artist.The list of names on the sailor's bicep is pretty funny. I guess people still have that problem today, being stuck with the tattoo even after love goes bad!That's some cool info, thank you so much!
Have information?
Have information about an artwork? Contact us at