DE VITADe Vita Unauthorized As a youth, Thom deVita (born 1932) mingled with famous New York School painters at the Cedar Tavern, and exhibited his paintings at open air art fairs in Washington Square Park. In the 1960s he began tattooing, not long after it was declared illegal in New York (the ban was overturned in 1997). DeVita's eccentric style and sophistication significantly influenced the emergence of tattooing as an art from the 1970s on, and today he