Maud Stevens Wagner: "The Mona Lisa of American Tattoo"

By: Alan Govenar

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Synopsis: Maud Stevens Wagner, the "Mona Lisa of American tattoo," was an ardent individualist who left home at a young age to pursue a career as a carnival performer, a contortionist, a tattoo model, and an aerialist. She was a thoroughly modern woman who asserted her independence and her own identity. Maud and her husband, Gus (known as the &“most artistically marked-up man in America"), traveled the country as the Wagner&’s Traveling Museum, exhibiting themselves and making tattoos around the US. This book is the second in the series Last of the Hand Tattoo Artists, detailing the lives of Gus, Maud, and their daughter, Lotteva. Author Alan Govenar brings you Maud&’s story with • Lotteva Wagner's oral history, • clippings and photographs from Gus Wagner&’s scrapbooks, • the Wagners' tattoo flash, and • newspaper articles and obituaries. As the author said, &“In one sense, Gus and Maud challenged all expectations, but in another, they embodied and celebrated the can-do spirit intrinsic to American life.&”