The Illustrated Man...Amund Dietzel

Last summer, Milwaukee Tattoo historian and artist (Solid State Tatoo) Jon Reiter released his beautifully designed and exhaustively researched book, These Old Blue Arms: The Life and Work of Amund Dietzel. Click here to view or order.

Amund Dietzel was born in Kristiana (now Oslo), Norway in 1891. At the age of 14, he left his homeland on a merchant ship (at the time, the fourth largest merchant fleet on earth) and spent the next 3 years of his life at sea. The art and significance of tatoos to the insular world of men at sea had a great effect on the young Norwegian. With home made tools and no small amount of drawing skills he went to work learning the art of tatooing by practicing on his shipmates. A timely shipwreck brought an abrupt end to his ocean travels and left him on the the shores of North America. Later, while in Connecticut, he developed a close friendship with a British immigrant tatoo artist named William Grimshaw. The two men inked each others bodies from head to toe (photo above, circa 1914) and hit the carnival circuit. They exhibited themselves, sold photographs of their inked bodies and provided tatoos for curious carnival goers. In 1914, Dietzel arrived in Milwaukee. He liked what he saw. Who wouldn't? America's machine shop was in full stride. The vitality of the immigrant city was a perfect fit for the Norwegian with unusual skills. He would spend the rest of his life in the Cream City. Two World War's worth of tatoo hungry soldiers and sailors from nearby Great Lakes Naval Station brought him both a wealth of customers and worldwide word of mouth advertising. He was soon known as the finest tatoo artist in the midwest.

Milwaukee was at it's nadir as a city when the Milwaukee Common Council banned tattoo parlors in 1967. Dietzel got in the last word, "At least it took the city fifty-one years to find out it doesn't want me. Milwaukee used to be a very nice town." Dietzel passed away in 1974.