Pin-Up Girls and Tattoos: A Love Affair Since WWII
- Joshua Chatwin
- Apr 28
- 5 min read
There's something just buzzing-electric about a pin-up tattoo. It’s vintage but always fresh, like an old truck or a doo-wop oldie — a perfect cocktail of sex appeal, art, and attitude. From the stages of 19th-century burlesque theaters to the bomber planes over WWII Europe, pin-up girls have seduced their way into our cultural bloodstream. No wonder pin-up tattoos are still some of the most requested tattoos out there.
But where did this obsession with sassy, scantily-clad women start? My guess is all the way back to the cave, but there’s no proof there, so let’s take it as far back as we can
The Birth of the Pin-Up Girl
Before tattoos, before posters, even before photography, there were burlesque dancers — women who combined theatrical performance with sweet, sensual teasing. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, burlesque and vaudeville were wildly popular in America and Britain, offering the rare chance to see women perform with flirtatious freedom and a fair amount of flesh as well.
As photography started booming, so did mass-produced images of glamorous women. Sex sells, as they say. The “pin-up” got its name because soldiers, workers, and teenage boys drifting to wet dream land literally pinned the pictures up on their walls — shrines of love and lust.
Artists like Gil Elvgren, George Petty, and Alberto Vargas perfected the visual language of the pin-up: curvaceous but innocent, naughty but nice. These women weren’t pornographic — they were fantasy girl-next-door types. Magazines like Esquire started publishing full-page "Vargas Girls" in the 1930s, and later Playboy carried the baton even further. One of my personal favorite pin-up artists is Olivia De Berardinis, who's striking and bold pin-ups were often featured in Playboy. Images from these artists became symbols of idealized beauty and American optimism as well as icons of sexual revolutions and countercultures.
Pin-Ups, War, and the Rise of the Tattoo
If you haven't caught on yet, here's your clue: World War II, the Great War, and the start of what became truly American culture. During the war pin-ups weren’t just decoration — they were emotional survival gear for soldiers. GI’s plastered their lockers, tents, and planes with images of Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, and other stars. Nose art — painting bombers with pin-up girls — was a lucky charm and a giant, flying fuck you to the enemy.
Naturally, when you’re 18 or 19, thousands of miles from home, about to go fight in hell, tattoos make a shit-ton of sense. They’re permanent good-luck charms that can’t be stolen and they are stark reminders of the "girl back home."
Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins, the godfather of American Traditional tattooing, famously etched busty, winking pin-up girls on countless soldiers and sailors passing through his Honolulu shop. His style — bold lines, saturated color, simple forms — is still the blueprint for classic pin-up tattoos today. Sailor Jerry had a keen eye for the female form. He knew how to simplify the beautiful curves to fit the wearer’s body and just oozed charm and sex appeal from every line.
The Symbolism Behind Pin-Up Tattoos
More than just a pretty face — though that's enough, isn't it? — pin-ups also represent:
Nostalgia — Remembering loved ones, simpler times.
Luck and Protection — Like a guardian angel with garters.
Freedom and Rebellion — A woman on your arm you chose
Personal Identity — Many pin-ups were customized to look like a girlfriend or secret crush, still a popular request today!
Getting a pin-up can be about embracing vintage aesthetics, reclaiming sexuality, or just thumbing your nose at boring modern beauty standards. If you place the tattoo right, you can even make your pin-up dance — a party trick that will get you more free drinks than a fish in the ocean.
Pin-Up Tattoos in the Modern World
Pin-ups never really left, but in the late '90s and 2000s, they roared back with the new school and then neo-traditional tattoo movements. New school tattooing is a bright, exaggerated style — like classic American Traditional on the muscle-puffer juice. Tattooers began reinterpreting pin-ups with more realistic shading, crazy neon colors, cartoon exaggeration, and even dark, macabre twists.
Modern tattooers like Shige (Yellow Blaze Tattoo, Japan) and Tim Hendricks have spun the style into new territory — honoring the old-school look while playing with surrealism, horror, and modern portraiture. Modern pin-ups often mix motifs of rockabilly, punk, classic (vintage), feminism, bdsm, etc to create new and fresh takes on the female form. Occasionally, but not often, men are the subject matter…maybe this should be a bigger thing----pun intended.
The Pioneers: Artists Who Made & Make Pin-Ups Immortal
While Sailor Jerry gets a lot of the street cred (deservedly), other tattoo legends like Don Ed Hardy (before that disastrous fashion branding) also kept the flame alive. Today, some of the best in the game are:
Teresa Sharpe — known for vibrant, fantasy-based pin-ups.
Tim Hendricks — with his refined take on traditional black and grey
Mauro Villagra — Argentinian absolute boss of the pin-up, combining traditional aesthetics with refined illustrative shading.
Onnie O’Leary — mostly NSFW tattoos in a bold, graphic style covering all sexualities and expression.
Why People Still Get Pin-Up Tattoos
Bottom line? Pin-up tattoos are timeless, sexy, customizable, and just dead-ass great fucking tattoo designs. Whether you’re drawn to a specific aesthetic (retro, vintage, sci-fi, Americana), want to pay tribute to that special someone with a customized pin-up, or you just want to own your sexuality and stick it to the sanitized social media idea of beauty, a pin-up tattoo can scratch all the itches you want.
They’re bold. They’re raw. They’re a middle finger with a wink and a red lipstick kiss.
From wartime bombers to your favorite local tat-temple, the pin-up girl is the symbol of freedom, beauty, raw sexual energy, and fucking grit often missing in this modern monotony: it’s a whole damn attitude sizzling with what the world needs — a little more lipstick, leather, and laughter.
Shameless Plug imminent:
Don’t miss our May 1st Thursday artist, Dinosaur Walker. It’s his second time slamming a pop-up art show over the flash walls of Fox & Sparrow Tattoo and this time he’s bringing a collection of mostly digital artwork of, you fucking guessed it, pin-ups! Ladies Night is a collection of pin-up style reworking of characters from TV, movie, and video games that get the motor humming, made in an anime pin-up style.
One night only, Thursday May 1st 2025 from 5-8PM, part of Downtown Muncie's 1st Thursday Artswalk.
See more of his work on his Linktree
Further Reading/Viewing:
The Art of Pin-Up by Dian Hanson
Gil Elvgren: All His Glamorous American Pin-Ups by Charles G. Martignette, Louis K. Meisel
Sailor Jerry Collins: American Tattoo Master by Michael McCabe
National WWII Museum on Nose Art
Joshua Chatwin, tattooing since 2010, owns Fox & Sparrow Tattoo with his wife and fellow tattooer, Samantha Chatwin. They live in and love Muncie Indiana with their daughter, Olivia, and two Papillon dogs, Honey Bear & Maple Wolf. Give him a good book, a good cigar, and about 30 in the sauna and he's happier than a pig in shit.
Comments