August Coleman named “Battleship Kate,” a major work of folk art, for a sex worker and swindler with head-to-toe tattoos. This tattooed figure at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts stands two feet ...

Made from papier-mâché, its title is “Battleship Kate,” and it’s a major piece of American folk art. But it’s not the sculpture that makes it important. It’s the tattoos. The sculpture is an old and ...