In 1881, a writer in the Saturday Review called tattooing ‘an art without a history’. ‘No-one’, it went on, ‘has made it the business of his life to study the development of tattooing.’ Until now.Painted People is a beguiling and intimate look at an untold history of humanity.The earliest tattoos yet identified belonged to Ötzi, the ‘iceman’, whose mummy allows us a brief glimpse into the prehistory of the practice. We know that over the m...

Che siano a colori, in bianco e nero, piccole iniziali sulle caviglie o arazzi che coprono tutto il corpo, che siano realizzati in una bettola del porto o con una lama e della fuliggine, i tatuaggi fanno parte da sempre della nostra storia. Osservando le tracce che gli esseri umani hanno impresso sulla loro pelle, possiamo comprendere persone, luoghi e momenti storici. Siamo abituati a pensare alle opere d'arte nei musei come a dei portali di accesso al nostro passato, ma a volte sembriamo...

In 1881, a writer in the Saturday Review called tattooing ‘an art without a history’. ‘No-one’, it went on, ‘has made it the business of his life to study the development of tattooing.’ Until now.Painted People is a beguiling and intimate look at an untold history of humanity.The earliest tattoos yet identified belonged to Ötzi, the ‘iceman’, whose mummy allows us a brief glimpse into the prehistory of the practice. We know that over the m...