Human Skin as Canvas: Tattooing and Fine Art in Edwardian Britain

Abstract

In 1910, Hector Hugh Munro (aka Saki) published “The Background”, an intriguing short-story relating the tragedy of Henri Deplis, a Luxembourger whose life becomes a nightmare after he acquires a beautiful artistic tattoo during a stay in Italy. Robbed of his identity as a person, Deplis becomes a human canvas whose only worth is inscribed in ink in the skin of his back.Saki is well-known for his mischievous satires of Edwardian culture, and the fictional Italian tattooist Signor Pincini may well have been inspired by British practitioners of the needle such as Sutherland Macdonald, Tom Riley, and Alfred South who became celebrities in late Victorian and Edwardian London. Catering to the tastes of an affluent clientele, these artists sometimes created, and more often replicated, famous paintings on the bodies of their customers.Taking Saki’s short-story as a starting point, we will look at the intertwined issues of the status of tattoing, of art ownership, and of copyright legislation at the turn of the19th century.

Keywords

• art
• copyright
• Hector Hugh Munro
• Saki
• Sutherland Macdonald
• tattoo