| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Subject | Owen Jensen |
| Type | Person |
| Era | Early Modern |
| Location | Long Beach Pike · California |
| Date | 1923 CE |
| Style / Technique | West Coast maritime traditional flash and machine building |
| Connected to | Charlie Wagner, Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins, Bert Grimm |
Archive Note
Owen Jensen was born in Pleasant Grove, Utah, in 1891, and worked the railroad shop in Ogden as a young man. The trade reached him slowly. In 1911 he walked roughly 12 miles to Provo to see the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, where he saw his first tattooed man, James Malcom, who had been tattooed by Charlie Wagner. He got his own first tattoo in 1913, from Bob Hodge on the Lucky Bill Show.
He learned the craft in Detroit. There he met J. G. Barber, who offered him part-time work in a machine shop building tattoo machines, since Jensen already had a machinist's hands. He soon learned to tattoo as well. Also in Detroit he met Edwin Brown and Brown's wife Sadie. After serving overseas in World War I, Jensen was stationed near Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Edwin Brown was tattooing, and he spent his weekends there learning to paint flash. The machine shop and the flash bench, the two halves of his later reputation, both started in Michigan.
Jensen came to Los Angeles around 1923. His documented shop addresses there include 412 South Main with Jack Julian around 1923,234 South Main with Charlie Barr around 1929, and 243 South Main. He also ran a supply business at 120 West 83rd Street, billed as the only tattoo supply house on the west coast, offering machines and well-drawn flash. In 1938 he took a brief turn in New York City, renting a small stairwell space before selling it after a few months.
What set him apart was the metal. Jensen is recorded as one of the premier machine builders and flash designers of the twentieth century, known for constructing lightweight, efficient cast-iron and brass machines that remain highly collectible. The flash matched the hardware. His sheets represent the peak of mid-century West Coast maritime traditional aesthetics, the sailor and military vocabulary of the period drawn tight and clean.
He did not work alone. Jensen kept a long and productive partnership with Lee Roy Minugh on the Pike in Long Beach, and he corresponded extensively with Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins in Honolulu, the two of them trading machine blueprints, technical advice, and design concepts across the Pacific. He also tattooed his wife, Florence Jensen, who performed as "Dainty Dotty," a heavily tattooed sideshow attraction with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus through the 1930s and 1940s. She died of a heart attack on December 17, 1952.
The Pike turned on him near the end. Around 1971 his relationship with Bert Grimm soured over a disagreement about flash designs, and Grimm ran him off from #22 Chestnut. Jensen then worked #26 Chestnut with Lee Roy Minugh. That is the address where he was attacked. As the Tattoo Archive records it, on July 5, 1976,"young punks came into #26 Chestnut, grabbed Owen Jensen around the neck and stuck a knife in his back. They beat him up pretty bad and took $30.00." He never recovered, and died on July 24, 1977, from the injuries. His machines outlasted the assault, still passing between collectors as some of the best metal the West Coast trade produced.