COOL DUDES I ADMIRE: MILTON ZEIS

Milton Zeis was an American businessman, commercial artist & tattooist from Rock Island, Illinois. The small town on the Mississippi River was said to have had a profound impact on the legend that Zeis came to be. When he was 9, his father took him to a riverboat show on the Mississippi, where he first witnessed tattooing. Bound for bigger things, he hopped on a train to California in his teen years. From around 1915 to the early 30s he learned as much as he could about the tattooing business— he turned that knowledge into a profitable business known as the Zeis Studio in & re-located to Rockford, Illinois.

Zeis grew his supply business out of one side of his basement, while operating a full tattoo shop on the other. For 20 years, he sold flash, pigments, & machines. Initially offering black and gray flash sheets, he became one of the first suppliers to offer color. In a culture that was reluctant to share its knowledge, Zeis was the first to share the tricks he learned over his years of work, eager to train any apprentice that worked under him. The Zeis School of Tattooing became an extension of both the studio & the supply business— the 20 course lessons sold for $125.00 & were even accredited by Adlai Stevenson (then governor of Illinois) as a home study program. He was also an actual circus clown, which is pretty damn cool.

Sadly, he died in 1972 while preparing for a circus act, suffering a fatal heart attack. He was a real cool dude who served as a pioneer in modern American tattooing. I have a piece of his work hanging on my wall that I picked up from the cool folks who now run the Zeis Studio.