Herbert Hoffmann

1919 - 2012

  • Willi Pelka, 1965, Vintage Print, 28,5 x 28,5 cm
  • Albert Cornelissen, 1957, Vintage Print, 28,5 x 28,5 cm
  • Harry Jahn, 1965, Vintage Print, 28,5 x 28,5 cm
  • Wilhelm Wedekemper, 1960, Vintage Print, 28,5 x 28,5 cm
  • Emma und Otto Manischwaski, 1958, Vintage Print, 28,5 x 28,5 cm
  • Karl Oergel, 1957, Vintage Print, 28,5 x 28,5 cm
  • Alfons Devinast, 1956, Vintage Print, 28,5 x 28,5 cm

At the time of his death at the age of 90, Herbert Hoffmann was the oldest active tattoo artist in the world. Working out of the notorious Hamburg neighborhood of St. Pauli, he has literally left his mark on innumerable people for the best part of a century. In his early occupation of traveling salesman and later, from 1961 as a tattoo artist himself, Hoffmann sought out tattooed people throughout Germany and persuaded them to allow him to take what turned out to be tender shots of them in intimate settings. A selection of these breathtaking photographs will be on display at Galerie Susanne Zander in Cologne. Since during the early and middle parts of the last century, tattooed people were regarded as social pariahs and were persecuted as criminals and during the Third Reich as Bolsheviks, it says something about Hoffmann’s affinity with these people that he was able to gain their permission to photograph these fascinating portraits.