Tattoo History Atlas Open In Globe

Greg Irons

Illustrative, comix-derived, nautical and macabre

San Francisco, California, USA

American counterculture artist (1947 to 1984) who moved from Fillmore rock posters and underground comix into tattooing, becoming a foundational figure of the American tattoo renaissance.

Archive Note

Greg Irons was born in Philadelphia in 1947 and came up through San Francisco's counterculture, drawing Fillmore rock posters, working on the Yellow Submarine animation crew in London in 1968, and making underground comix. He started tattooing in 1980 at thirty-two and, in only about four years, produced enough work to be cited as a foundational figure of the American tattoo renaissance. His heavy black line, comix-style caricature, and nautical and macabre imagery, including work drawn from Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, translated well to tattooing and circulated as flash long after his death. He was killed by a bus in Bangkok in 1984.

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