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Ralph Ashwell Tattoo Flash
Ralph Ashwell Tattoo Flash
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Features & Benefits:
- 100+ never-before-seen flash sheets: Beautifully painted full-color flash spanning the late 1930s to early 1960s, revealing a hidden gem among American tattoo practitioners of the era
- Comprehensive biography: Written and researched by Carmen Forquer Nyssen, documenting Ashwell's elusive history and establishing his rightful place among twentieth-century American tattoo artists
- Depression and wartime era documentation: Captures flash created through the Great Depression, at least two wars, and accompanying waves of servicemen, showing how tattoo art responded to historical moments
- Functional traditional flash: Roses, banners, military insignia, and pop culture imagery demonstrate the versatile approach of a working-class tattooer who balanced trade labor with his craft
Specifications
Specifications
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 116
Dimensions: 9" x 12"
Publisher: Yellow Beak Press
Subject: Ralph Ashwell (1901-1960s, Shippensburg/Harrisburg, PA)
Content: 100+ full-color flash sheets, biography
Time Period: Late 1930s to early 1960s
Author/Researcher: Carmen Forquer Nyssen
Themes: Roses, banners, military insignia, pop culture imagery
Description
Description
Yellow Beak Press brings to light the work of Ralph Ashwell, a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania tattooer whose career spanned three decades of American history. Born in Shippensburg in 1901, Ashwell worked as a trade laborer while tattooing from the 1930s through the early 1960s, embodying the multifaceted reality of working tattooers in that era. His flash represents the functional, technical, and artistic aspects that defined the craft from servicemen seeking military insignia to civilians wanting roses and pop culture imagery. Despite a somewhat elusive history, this book establishes Ashwell's place among America's twentieth-century tattoo artists, preserving work that might otherwise have been lost to time.
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