BERT GRIMM - Bert settled in St. Louis in the late 1920's and
maintained a tattoo shop for almost 30 years. He married Julia Lechlin of
St. Louis who later worked at the shop running the photo portion.
Lecture series
Bert was the second person to be inducted into the Tattoo Art Museum's
Tattoo Hall of Fame in 1983. The St. Louis Old School Tattoo Expo will celebrate
Bert Grimm's contribution to St. Louis with a special exhibit of photographs
and artifacts.
The Legend of Bert Grimm
by Don Deaton
By 1952, when Bert Grimm moved to my hometown of Long Beach, California, he was already a towering legend in the tattoo world. Like all myths and legends, however, it's sometimes difficult to sort out the hard facts from the fantasies that have built up around the mythic hero.
Lurking in the streets and back alleys of our local amusement park there had, it seemed to me, always been tattoo shops, which served the Navy, merchant fleet and local bravos and scallywags. It was in that area that Bert, already a famed tattooist from St. Louis, bought his Long Beach shop. He purchased it from a woman tattoo artist, a German by birth, who subsequently faded into oblivion. But Bert's fame and renown, considerable at the time, was still rising. He soon filled the windows with picturesque photos of the many people he had tattooed, and the walls were crowded with boldly executed design sheets. By '56 he had opened five shops in the amusement park. But, by '57, other people in the tattoo trade, anxious to cash in on the considerable business that Bert had generated, persuaded the city to pass a ruling to limit the number of shops that one person could own. Though many thought the ruling was of questionable legality, Bert decided to abide by the new law and to beat the competition using another great talent that he had mastered. He was a self promoter of the highest calibre, who used his popular little shop as a theater where he presented the tales and ballads of his colorful past.
About three quarters into the tattoo, Bert would pause, stick a toothpick in his mouth, pull on his suspenders, and announce, "And now for my famous ten minute speech." He would then tell of how he had started tattooing professionally in Chicago early in 1916. During his long career, he told his mesmerized customers, he had tattooed Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, and numerous others of the underworld nobility who passed through St. Louis, the city where Bert tattooed the longest. All through his little monologue he kept repeating, "I am the greatest. I am the greatest. I am the greatest tattoo artist in the world." Bert continued to present himself and weave his spell until people were coming hundreds of miles to Long Beach to get their work from the greatest. And, although there were always three to four tattoo shops in the amusement park, the other shops never got more than Bert's overflow.
The spells that he wove lasted on and on, so that a street person here in Portland, named Uncle Ray, came into our shop one day about twenty-six years ago, pulled up his sleeve, smiled and said, Bert Grimm did that. I'll never forget the day. It was May 16th, 1948 in St. Louis. I was in the Navy then. He's the greatest."
In 1970 Bert sold his shop in Long Beach to Bob Shaw, retired and moved up north. He soon, however, became bored with retirement and opened up a shop here in Portland, which he ran until '77, when failing health caused him to retire once more. His nephew, Bob Shaw, and Bob's partner, Colonel Todd, bought the business, sending Dave Orlowsky and me up from L.A. to run it. On a slow day, not long after that, Bert came over to talk, when a hurried looking man in a business suit rushed in to get change for the parking meter.
Bert stood back while I talked to the man, but finally gave an impatient sigh and stepped forward. "Have you ever thought of getting a tattoo?" Bert queried..
The man looked nervously out at the parking meter, then replied, "Well no. They're fine and all, but they're just not for me. I mean, no, I'd never get one. I like them on other people. Don't get me wrong. They're just not for me."
"Let me introduce myself. I'm Bert Grimm. This used to be my shop, though I'm retired now. But many still say that I'm the greatest tattoo artist in the world. I opened my first shop in Chicago in 1916. And in my time I've tattooed Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd..." Bert went on with his famous ten minute speech, until finally the hurried business man was sitting down at my station and I was tattooing an eagle on his arm. Bert just couldn't stand to see someone come into the shop and leave without a tattoo. After Bert left, the man paid me, still looking nervously out at the parking meter.
Then he smiled, shook his head and said "Wow, what a story. That old guy's the greatest tattoo artist in the world." Largely due to his singing and heralding paeans to his own prowess, Bert had become, as they say, a legend in his own time.
As in all legends, however, the tales of heroes vary. One article written about Bert in the late seventies stated that in 1917, after being a gofer and clean up boy for a tattoo artist in Portland, Oregon for a couple of years, Bert took to the road and spent the next two years travelling the world, making his living as a prize fighter and merchant seaman, finally opening a tattoo shop in Chicago in 1916. The arithmetic is a little off, but that's the sort of stuff legends are made of. Another source stated that Bert didn't start tattooing until 1927. On the other hand, Bert once showed me a card advertising a shop he had in Los Angeles. It was dated 1924. Another former employee of Bert Grimm told me that he suspected Bert hadn't actually opened his first shop until 1930. Yet a woman who's known Bert for many years told me she'd met him in 1930 and, by that time, he had gained the reputation of being the greatest tattoo artist in the world. Bert insisted that he started in Chicago in 1916, shortly after his sixteenth birthday, and that summer, he told me, he went on a tour tattooing with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Circus. I began doubting that when I read the Wild West Circus went bankrupt in 1910. Recently, however, I read that Buffalo Bill borrowed some money and made one last tour in 1916. And yet, I read somewhere else that, though Buffalo Bill planned to, he'd never made that last tour. Alas, it's all shrouded in the mist of time gone by. All of those people are dead now and the records disagree.
What I do know is that he was born in a little town near Portland, Oregon, February 8th, 1900. He later changed his name to Bert Grimm and he was a tattoo legend by 1952 when he moved to my home town. He died May 16th, 1985, in Gearhart, Oregon. I was a pallbearer at his funeral and I saw fresh tattoos on the arms of people gathered around his grave, tattoos that were unmistakably done by Bert. And many people still alive believe he was the greatest tattoo artist in the world.