Doc Price is the oldest tattoo artist still working! He would be 86 years old and only dropped the dermograph at the end of 2019 after the London Tattoo Convention. This iconic Plymouth tattoo artist established himself there alone before his son, Bill, joined him. Darrel, "Doc" Price is a traditional European tattoo figure who is said to have tattooed between 28 and 40 acres of skin during his career.
His remarkable life, he talks about it between tattoos while the reels hum. His voice trembles with age and his line a little too, but his aficionados don't care because they will have, marked for life, on their skin, a flash "made by the Doc'"! Far from having completely decided to retire, at 86 years old, he tattoos in Plymouth with his son. "I really don't know because I've been in tattooing for so long and I really like to stay in tattooing. Plus, I make dermographs." He makes machines for his peers and would like to perpetuate that even though he no longer tattoos, "I make machines because in a way I want to make tattoo machines internationally and make them better. ... The first machine is never as good as it could be, you know?"
Now, once the needle is hung up, he would still have a little more time to devote to other activities. Among other things, his love for sculpture... erotic! The Doc' is a fine rascal. "My idea is to make sculpture, a kind of erotic sculpture. My sculptures are sometimes related to ghosts or eroticism, inspired by old doors and their more or less richly decorated knockers".
Throughout his career, Doc has observed an evolution of tattooing from the underground to the contemporary mainstream. Doc talks about social networks as a big influence of the yellows and a push on the visibility of tattooing in general. He even confides that there is a notion of impressing others with his tattoos. "Oh, now it's an explosion of talent, skill, an explosion of passion, now it's also fashion and an explosion of masculinity."
A tattoo that has nothing to do compared to his early days when, only primary colors were available ... Doc remembers! His story and his career are already 70 years old in tattooing. He started at the age of 13 when he was tattooed by a certain Billy Knight in Cardiff. He grew up in a small provincial town in the Welsh Marches region of Hereford. It is a little later that he inks his first tattoo, a cross of the French legion. Then, he buys for 7 pounds a machine and settles in the South Whales in Barry Island in 1954. "I started getting tattoos when I was 13, it was quite unusual at the time, you couldn't get a tattoo at that age, that's how I got my first tattoo. Then I got my second tattoo from the same tattoo artist that I got my first tattoo with. I was a soldier but I was the worst soldier they ever had! They told me that and I said great, so fire me! ... I got fired and started tattooing!".
In 1966, he lost all his stuff and tattoo equipment when the boat bringing his stuff back to South Africa sank at sea. Then, in 1967 he opened a salon called The bucket of Blood in the outskirts of Sydney. In Sydney, he met the owner of The Illustrated Man Tattoo Studio, one of the oldest in Sydney, run by Tony Cohen. A pioneer of Australian tattooing. Doc Price also took the time to study Japanese tattooing in Japan with master Caso Orgori. He understands that the tattooing world of the time until now is a world that remains rather hard where you have to play elbows.
Finally, Doc Price throughout his career, has traveled and tattooed all over the world: "I tattooed in South Africa, Thailand, Germany... even in my early days, when I was in Berlin in 1962, as a soldier, I tattooed. I got my second tattoo as a soldier and I had the opportunity to draw very well, that's how it all started for me." In fact, Doc Price has more than one trick up his sleeve as he represented Australia at the Kendo Championships in 1969. He practiced Aikido, Judo and at 75 won a prize at the Kendo World Championship in his age group.
Finally, the tattoo is all his life even if he admits to never having counted those he wears. Moreover, he will refuse to tattoo his son Bill until his majority. "All my life, my son and I have worked together daily for over 50 years. My son got his first tattoo when he was 8 years old." But surely one of the most incongruous requests he's had to make is for a man to get his will tattooed on his back. Doc tells in an article of Tattoo Life, that he will not warn him of the spelling mistakes that had crept in. In London, at the London Tattoo Convention of 2019, Doc Price inked all day a large number of small traditional American flash. A nice exercise, since he will focus then only on refreshment of tattoos already done. A last chance to be tattooed by this legend. The craze around the Star of the event. https://www.docpricetattooingplymouth.co.uk/
