Lotteva Wagner Davis : Hand Tattooist & Artist of the American West

The true story of a strong, successful, and independent woman tattooist and artist through her own words and art; the third book in a series about the Wagner tattooist family

Lotteva Wagner Davis was an American original—a tattooist and western artist in the early to mid-20th century. Following in the footsteps of her parents, Gus and Maud Wagner—tattoo artists and carnival performers—Lotteva was raised in the carnival and started hand tattooing in 1919, when she was just nine years old. She was one of few tattooists to have completely bare skin; her mother forbade her father to tattoo her, relenting only after his death, but Lotteva didn’t want to be tattooed by anyone but her father.

This is the third book in the series on the Wagner family, Last of the Hand Tattoo Artists. It includes tattoo flash by Lotteva and her father, Gus, showing the evolution of hand tattoos from one generation to the next.

According to her cousin, Lotteva was “a person with one foot grounded in the ordinary world and the other in this crazy carnival world.”