Painless Nell Bowen's story is one of the best chapters in San Diego tattoo history. Back in the 1940s, when this was a Navy town packed with sailors, she was running some of the busiest shops downtown, and plenty of the guys who shaped West Coast traditional tattooing came through her doors.
When Nell closed up, Zeke Owen took over her old location and opened it as the Ace Tattooing Company. So the shop kept going, just under a new name, and it's still part of San Diego tattooing today.
The Birth of Painless Nell's Tattoo Shop
Painless Nell’s San Diego
In the 1940s, tattooing was a man's trade, and Nell ran it anyway. She worked alongside her husband, Sailor Hugh Bowen, and her sister Jo, who had one leg. One story going around the old-timers is that Jo lost it to an infection from a tattoo Nell gave her, and that Nell taught her to tattoo afterward. Nobody's been able to confirm it, but it's the kind of legend that sticks to a shop like theirs. At one point they're said to have had six shops downtown, all packed with Navy guys coming through the port.
Nell and Jo kept up with the crowds by working assembly line style: one outlined, the other shaded. They also used the sponge and bucket method, wiping every customer down with the same sponge and bucket of water. During World War II it made their shop one of the busiest in the city. Health regulations killed the sponge and bucket later on, for good reason.
Her walls were covered in the flash sailors wanted back then: anchors, pin-up girls, roses and hearts, eagles and flags. Bold lines, heavy black, a few solid colors that would hold up for decades. A lot of those same designs are still on shop walls today.
Sailor Hugh Bowen: A Tattoo Pioneer
Hugh C. Bowen, known as "Sailor Hughie," was born in 1894 and started tattooing after serving in the Navy during World War I. He learned in Detroit, working alongside J.F. Barber, Edwin Earl Brown, and Percy Waters, who also tattooed him. The most famous piece was a Christ head on his scalp, done by Waters around 1919. Early on, Hugh worked as both a tattooer and a tattooed attraction, traveling and showing off his work.
Sailor Hugh Bowen's Christ head scalp tattoo, done by Percy Waters around 1919
By 1929 he'd moved to Long Beach, tattooing with Fred McKee near the Pike. The Depression hit tattooers hard, so Hugh switched to the carnival business, first as a concessionaire for Joyland Shows and eventually owning his own carnival. That's where he met Nellie Bohnak, a stenographer who became his wife and business partner. Hugh's brother Clarence married Nell's sister Jo, and the four of them worked the carnival circuit through the 1930s.
In the 1940s they settled in San Diego and got back into tattooing. Hugh is also said to have had shops around Southern California, making the rounds every day to collect the take. They were good friends with Bert Grimm, but the shops they built were their own.
How Nell's Shop Became Ace Tattooing
Zeke Owen was working with Ed Hardy at Ichiban Tattoo in San Diego when he walked out one day and took over Nell's old location. He opened it as the Ace Tattooing Company, and that's how her shop kept going after she closed.
By the 1980s, Ace had moved to Ocean Beach, upstairs from a taco shop with a deck looking out over the Pacific. It's still open today, one of the few direct links left to San Diego's Navy-town tattoo days.
Nell's Influence
Plenty of tattooers who went on to shape the craft passed through Nell's shop. Charlie Cartwright got tattooed there on the assembly line while he was stationed in San Diego with the Navy. His first professional tattoo is said to have come from Tahiti Felix Lynch at Master's Tattoo, but Nell's left its mark, and he went on to become one of the most influential tattooers of his generation.
Charlie Barrs worked at Nell's and helped build its reputation for solid work. Between the Bowens and the people who worked for them, San Diego became a real hub for West Coast traditional tattooing.
Today Nell's legacy lives on through Ace and through the flash of that era, which still hangs on shop walls everywhere.
Nell's Legacy Today
Nell ran some of the busiest shops in a Navy town at a time when women weren't supposed to be in the business at all. From her downtown shops to Ace in Ocean Beach, that same line of work has been part of San Diego for over 80 years.
I've been tattooing American traditional in San Diego since 2003, and I've always liked digging into the city's tattoo history. If you want something with that old Navy-town feel, come by and we'll talk it over.