Don Ed Hardy, The Legend of Modern Tattoo

By juggling with a brush and a needle, Don Ed Hardy has transformed and democratized the American tattoo culture. An artist and honored tattoo artist, blurring the boundaries between tattoo and visual arts and breaking stereotypes, he allowed the tattoo to find its nobility. Zoom in on the mythical artist.

Soul (beyond his years) of an artist

Don Ed Hardy was born in 1945 in California. From an early age he was fond of the art of tattooing. At the age of 10, fascinated by the tattoos of his best friend's father, he began to draw obsessively. Instead of playing ball with his friends, he prefers to spend hours tattooing the neighbour's children with a pen or eyeliner. Deciding to make this new hobby his profession, after high school he began his apprenticeship by observing the work of artists of the time, such as Bert Grimm, in Long Beach tattoo parlors. As a teenager, he became interested in art history and entered the San Francisco Art Institute. Thanks to his literature teacher Phil Sparrow - also a writer and tattoo artist - he discovered Irezumi. This first exposure to traditional Japanese tattooing will deeply mark Ed Hardy and outline the contours of his art.

Don Ed Hardy: Between the USA and Asia

His friend and mentor, Sailor Jerry, an old-school tenor who modernized the art of tattooing both in practice and aesthetics with an interest in Japanese tattooing, will enable Don Ed Hardy to continue his studies. In 1973, he sent him to the land of the rising sun to work with the classic Japanese tattoo artist Horihide. Ed Hardy is also the first Western tattoo artist to gain access to this training.

Raising a tattoo to the level of art

Ed Hardy's style is a meeting of traditional American tattooing and the Japanese ukiyo-e tradition. On the one hand, his work is inspired by the classic American tattoo iconography of the first half of the 20th century. It uses typical motifs like a rose, a skull, an anchor, a heart, an eagle, a dagger, a panther, or even flags, ribbons, cartoon characters or a picture of a movie star. With this American culture, he mixes ukiyo-e, a Japanese art movement that developed from the early 17th century to the mid-19th century. Common themes include women and courtesans, sumo wrestlers, nature, as well as fantasy creatures and eroticism. By combining art and tattooing, Ed Hardy opened up a new path to tattooing, which until then had been underestimated and mistakenly considered reserved for sailors, bikers, or thugs.

After Ed Hardy: Securing the Transfer

Don Ed Hardy never stopped collecting all sorts of information pertaining to the history of tattooing. In the early 80s, he founded Hardy Marks Publications with his wife and published dozens of books on the art of tattooing. It also dedicates 4 great artists of yesterday and today: Brooklyn Joe Lieber, Sailor Jerry, Khalil Rinti or Albert Kurtzman, aka The Lion Jew, the first tattoo artist to create and sell tattoo motifs. Flash. The motives that formed the catalog of American tattoos at the beginning of the last century, and some of them are still in use today! Don Ed Hardy also publishes collections of his own works and drawings. At the same time, in 1982, together with his colleagues Ed Nolte and Ernie Carafa, he created Triple E Productions and launched the first American tattoo convention aboard the Queen Mary, which has become a true benchmark in the world of tattooing.

From tattoo to fashion

At the dawn of the 2000s, Ed Hardy was born under the leadership of French designer Christian Audigier. Tigers, pin-ups, dragons, skulls and other symbolic motifs of the American tattoo artist are massively displayed on T-shirts and accessories created by the brand. The style is certainly bright, but the success is impressive and contributes to the popularization of the genius of Don Ed Hardy.

If today the legend of modern tattooing is exclusively devoted to painting, drawing and engraving, Don Ed Hardy nevertheless continues to curate artists (including his son Doug Hardy) who work at his Tattoo City studio in San Francisco.