His Body of Work

Wasn’t so long ago, Don Ed Hardy recalls, that an afternoon stroll could elicit all this: heads abruptly jerking thataway, glances that would linger just a beat too long, or excited whispers that followed his retreating steps.

But now, what the tattoo guru gets are accolades.

At 54, Hardy is a well-respected artist and subject of one-man shows. His work has been so influential that when you see an intricately plotted or rendered tattoo nowadays, you probably have Don Ed Hardy to thank. And yet, with tattoos about as taboo as Pokemon, those long-ago moments as a sidewalk oddity are starting to look like the good ol’ days.

Hardy, whose 40-year retrospective opened last week at Bergamot Station’s Track 16 in Santa Monica, is best known for linking Asian aesthetics and Western art traditions.

It was Hardy, who, in the ‘80s, raised awareness of the form’s potential through a series of lushly illustrated underground publications--including Tattootime--which have been intricately linked with the tattoo boom.

But he’s conflicted about the fuss. “I resented it when high-art people would dismiss it, or if you had a tattoo and people wouldn’t rent apartments to you or you couldn’t get a job,” says Hardy, who got his first tattoo at 21. “But now a lot of it is fad stuff. Flavor of the month--sports figures, actresses, CEOs. I just have mixed feelings about the popularity.”

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Hardy grew up in the Orange County beach town of Corona del Mar. At 10, transfixed by a best friend’s father’s tattoos--curios from his Navy days--he decided to mimic not just the designs but the procedure.

“When I was about 10, we’d draw toy tattoos and would use colored pencils,” says Hardy. He converted the family den into a “studio” and covered the walls with thumbnail sketches (called “flash art”) on notebook paper.

The young Hardy spent lots of time at the old Pike in Long Beach, transfixed by the beach-side tattoo parlors, where he encountered the work of Bert Grimm, the premier American tattooer. “I wanted my own tattoo,” says Hardy, “but when I realized I was too young, I got off on other kinds of art.”

Furious sketching sent him into a more formal study of art and eventually north where, as a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, he began to focus on lithography and intaglio etching. It was there, in the early ‘60s, that he reconnected with tattooing. “I just always felt that it was an underdeveloped art form. You go into a tattoo shop and not too many tattooers have a creative spark.”

Influenced by surf, beat, hot rod, and Japanese cultures, (he spent six months in Japan in 1973 studying with a tattoo master)--as well as horror fiction a la H.P. Lovecraft and the visual imagery of Mexican draftsman Jose Luis Cuevas, Hardy’s work spans not just disciplines but the globe.

The show, which comprises roughly 1,200 pieces--framed paintings and etchings, snapshots of “flash art”--that Hardy had been storing in his San Francisco shop.

“The idea was to design and install the show as if it was an elegant tattoo shop,” says Laurie Steelink, the exhibition’s curator. Hardy suggested stapling his work to the wall. “I told him: ‘There will be no staples in my exhibition!’ But that’s Hardy,” she laughs. “He’s so humble and low key, but has always been regarded the king of tattooing in the West. He’s the innovator. There is a certain type of expression in a painting that is meticulously painted . . . and that exists in Hardy’s work. It adds an extra weight.” His shop in San Francisco’s North Beach, Tattoo City, is busy, with a staff of artists, but Hardy works only when the mood hits. “I’m only in there a couple of days a week, and really not doing any more large epic things. Right now I’m aiming to paint more.” Over the years, he has noted a dramatic change. He’s gone from having to carefully conceal tattoos on doctors or executives who were worried about the judgment of the outside world to being commissioned to do full-back and body pieces that can cost as much as a luxury automobile.

A purist, says Steelink, “Hardy has some really strong opinions about what’s out there. ‘People are making shag carpeting!’ or ‘It looks like the dog threw up on the carpet.’ He’s very, very meticulous.”

In a tone as serious as a surgeon’s, Hardy says, “I’ve turned down a lot of stuff. When you have a street shop, all kinds of people wander in for tattoos--you get bikers who come in and want ‘White Power’ or these guys who are on their first liberty and they come in and want their girlfriend’s name ‘I’m in love!’ ‘Are you sure?’ And if someone comes in and the first thing they start asking is: ‘How easy it this to remove?’ Well, I know they aren’t ready.”

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“Tattooing The Invisible Man: Bodies of Work” 1955-1999 through Jan. 22, at Track 16 Gallery, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica. Call (310) 264-4678.