Sailor Jerry. Born Norman Collins in 1911, Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins is probably the best known tattoo artist of our times and sometimes is even thought of as the father of the old school tattoo.

Jerry’s style of “Sailor” tattoos is still going strong 30+ years after his death and his legacy is far beyond tattoo designs or flash. The company with his name is responsible for many items including clothing, baby shoes, jewelery, patches, purses, ash trays, card

s and anything else you can even think of. All the companies items have colorful images on them that originally were the Sailor Jerry tattoo designs...

A name that has become associated with tattoos, especially vintage tattooes is Sailor Jerry

To this day, tattoo shops all over the world keep up the vintage traditions offering those same colorfull images that set the standard so long ago. The people getting these tattoos are no longer sailors stationed far away from home. But they love the art so much that they commit to it for the rest of thier lives. Those images of Hawaiian Hula girls, large boats, roses, hearts, mom and dad, and overly endowed dancers are still going strong today.

A bit about vintage tattoos, sailors and the man, Sailor Jerry:

While some men set up comfortable homes in the suburbs and saved for better washing machines and lawn mowers, others set out to see the world through the hopped-up, wild eyes of shore leave. When they got back on the ship they had some stories to tell and some permanent artwork to boot. Back then, the prime tattoo site wasn’t an ankle, it was a beefy forearm that informed all casual observers that you’d done things and been places that set you apart from the gray flannel world.

The Old School Master

If you really want a true classic, you’ll have to go back in time and cross the ocean (unless you live in Honolulu). That’s where you’d find a guy with a white tee shirt, an oily grey pompadour and heavily tattooed arms, once known to seamen and still known to tattoo aficionados as “Sailor Jerry.” He’s the man many see as the father of the deftly crafted, boldly lined, balls-forward Old School Tattoo. The kind fueled by the devil-may-care appetites of men far away from home.

Sailor Jerry - Norman Collins

Sailor Jerry was tagged with the name Norman Collins at birth, but he began to distance himself from normalcy/ normancy when he was 19 (that’s why he became a sailor).

He traveled around the world, not only getting his first tattoos, but also gaining exposure to the art and imagery of Southeast Asia. This later became a crucial influence when he opened his first tattoo shop in Honolulu’s Chinatown, ground zero for swaggering sailors, drunken soldiers and whoever else wasn’t afraid to hang around volatile levels of testosterone.

Tattoos were not Born in Trendy Neighborhoods

The Honolulu Tattoo district was designed to accommodate a time in men’s lives when they drank heavily, paid for women, and imprinted their biceps with pictures solid and resonant enough to last a lifetime. Back then, Chinatown was the only place on the island where a man could get a tattoo, creating fierce competition among the many tattoo parlors.

Roving sailors weren’t looking at the nuances of shading and color, they were seeking pictures worth showing off to their buddies back home. Sailor Jerry built his business with bold designs that artfully expressed the mind set of his clientele. When you look at Sailor Jerry’s “flash”, it’s immediately apparent why he spawned the kind

of following that made it necessary to begin printing “The Original Sailor Jerry” on all his business cards.

When I first started tattooing, after hangin around tattoo shops in the late 50s, I hung out with old Sailor Joe Simmons who was about 80 years old then, he was a traveling tattooer, never stayed too long in one spot, he was half blind, and he got me mixing ink and making needles for him, as he could not see, a real classic tattooer. Could write a book on this guy, he was funny, real tough as well, people were scared of him.

There were several tattooers coming and going from Charlie Snows shop, down the street, guys like the Liberty brothers, from Boston, Ted Liberty, later known as Captain Ted, there was also Circus Leo, great old timers. Old Sailor Joe was really the only one you could get to go into his shop set down and talk, of course if he knew you could draw and could help you were most welcome there. The other shops, you went in you got a kick in the ass, and thrown out. But if ya came back 5 or 6 times you got to stay. And I got to stay, got ass kicked, boot fucked, several times, but got to stay. Watch, ask questions, go home and draw!

When I first started to tattoo for money, I started at Charlie’s place, the flash there was old, some of it dated pre-1900 as well, done by Fred Baldwin, and Charlie’s stuff was WW2 vintage. I always wanted to improve on the look but still keep that neat old look, and being highly influenced by Cap Coleman and Paul Rogers style, I tried to redo the flash, to look Coleman style. Charlie would rag the hell out a me for doin this, and it was several years about 1967 before I could really do what I wanted to the flash without getting a kick in the bum.

Charlie’s stencils were cut on just about everything, old and worn out. Most were cut on old windows from old ford cars. Which were made from acetate. Some were cut on x-ray film which was blue color plastic; you would put some charcoal on them a little Vaseline on the skin to take the print, and hope to hell it would be clear enough to see, which seldom was, and you could never redo a stencil, the ol man would rag you out in front of the whole shop. So you had to fake it. A quick look at the design on the wall and go for it. Many times I ended up free-handing the tattoo. You could never take a sheet of flash and look at, that was a no no, they would say if ya gotta look at the flash you’ll never be a tattooer.

Jerry.

Sailor Jerry

From Wikipedia.com

Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins (born 1911, died 1973) is considered the foremost American tattoo artist of his time. He expanded the array of colors available by developing his own safe pigments. He created needle formations that embedded pigment with much less trauma to the skin, and he was one of the first to utilize single-use needles and hospital-quality sterilization. His attention to detail was so precise that the riggings in his nautical tattoos were perfectly accurate. Artistically, his influence stems from his union of the roguish attitude of the American sailor with the mysticism and technical prowess of the Far East. He maintained a close correspondence with Japanese tattoo masters during his career. He regarded tattoos as the ultimate rebellion against “the Squares”.

Sailor Jerry’s first studio was in Honolulu’s Chinatown, then the only place on the island where tattoo studios were located. He thrived in the hotbed of competition. His work was so widely copied, he took to printing “The Original Sailor Jerry” on his business cards.

A mischievous sense of humor is frequently on display in Sailor Jerry’s work, which included such impish designs as the “Aloha Chimpanzee”, an image of a monkey bent over with its head facing out from between its legs and “ALOHA” spelled out on its behind (with a red “O” that also doubles as the chimpanzee’s anus). Yet he was an avid and vocal proponent of professionalism and craft. In the tattoo world, he was well-known for his frequent campaigns against middling practitioners, whom he called “scab artists”. Conversely, he went out of his way to mentor those tattoo artists whose talents and attitude he respected, among them tattoo legends Don Ed Hardy and Mike Malone, to whom he entrusted his legacy of flash designs.

At age 19, Sailor Jerry enlisted in the US Navy. It was during his subsequent travels at sea when he was exposed to the art and imagery of Southeast Asia. He remained a sailor for his entire life thereafter. Even during his career as tattoo artist, he worked as licensed skipper of a large three-masted schooner, which he used to conduct tours of the Hawaiian islands. Sailing and tattooing were only two of his professional endeavors. He played saxophone in his own dance band and for years, Sailor Jerry was the ultra conservative, frequently controversial host of his own night talk show on KTRG radio, where he broadcast as “Old Ironsides”. Among those things he railed against were flashy tattoo artists such as Lyle Tuttle — and what he called “hippie tattoo” culture. From his 20s to his late 50s, he stopped tattooing entirely as a part of a disagreement with the IRS.

Legacy of Sailor Jerry

Sailor Jerry’s entrusted his name and his artwork to his two proteges, Ed Hardy and Mike Malone, both of whom have become prominent figures in their own right. Hardy, who turned down an MFT scholarship to Yale in order to pursue tattooing, is known for his artistic sophistication and large-scale tattoos. Malone, who also designs under the name “Rollo Banks”, is known for his conceptual boldness and distinctive designs. Hardy and Malone own the royalties to Sailor Jerry’s tattoo flash. And it was Malone who took over Sailor Jerry’s Honolulu tattoo parlor.

Sailor Jerry is buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, a military

cemetery located in Punchbowl Crater in Honolulu. His grave site is 124/Section T.

Sailor Jerry Ltd, Sailor Jerry art lives on

In 1999, Hardy and Malone partnered with a small independent Philadelphia clothing company to to establish Sailor Jerry Ltd., which produces clothing and an idiosyncratic collection of other items, such as ash trays, high-top sneakers, playing cards, church keys and shot glasses. An anti-sweatshop company, nearly all Sailor Jerry items are produced in the United States and sold via the company’s web site or from the Sailor Jerry Store on 38 N. 3rd Street in Philadelphia, which frequently plays host to performances by independent musicians. Links to bands

Sailor Jerry Ltd. produces a 92 proof spiced navy rum featuring a quintessential Sailor Jerry hula girl on the label. It is based on the kind of rums that sailors used to create by infusing on-board stocks of rum with spices. Sailor Jerry rum is distilled in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Sailor Jerry’s letters and art are owned and managed by Sailor Jerry Ltd.

Here is a great vintage flash gallery with many of Sailor Jerry’s tattoo flash sheet images