DON ED HARDY
A Southern California native born in 1945, Hardy acted on his childhood determination to become a tattoo artist and underwent a tattoo apprenticeship while simultaneously receiving a B.F.A. degree in printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1967. His specialization in intaglio printmaking, with its “speed of line, rhythm, variety, and density of structure” prepared him well for the career that followed. He turned down a graduate fellowship offer from Yale School of Art and decided instead to begin tattooing professionally.
In 1973 at the invitation of the Japanese tattoo master Horihide, Hardy moved to Gifu, Japan where he studied and tattooed. The following year he opened Realistic Tattoo in San Francisco, a private studio where he undertook unique tattoo commissions tailored to his clients’ wishes and needs. Encouraging unique tattoo commissions from his customers created a permanent shift in Western tattooing with an emphasis on the potential of tattooing as an artistic expression.
In 1986 Hardy moved to Honolulu to concentrate more on his art. For the next ten years he would commute back and forth to San Francisco to tattoo. Hardy discovered that he could utilize imagery he developed as a tattoo artist in compositions that were large and complex. Brushes and pens on paper and canvas presented a challenging departure from tightly controlled tattoo work.
Hardy returned to printmaking in 1992, and early etchings created at presses in Chicago and San Francisco reveal a simple style akin to the “flash” in his tattoo repertoire. Later prints—particularly those done with Mullowney Printing (Nara, Japan, and San Francisco), Shark’s Ink (Boulder, Colorado), and Magnolia Editions (Oakland)—are larger, colorful, and more ebullient. Hardy describes them as a mix of “the grotesque, humorous, subtle, and flamboyant.”
Major career exhibitions include his first retrospective “Tattooing the Invisible Man” that was mounted at Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica in 1999, his epic 500 foot scroll 2000 Dragons which was the focus of exhibitions in five different cities, and his finally major 2019 retrospective “Deeper Than Skin” at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. In addition to showing his own works, Hardy has curated a number of exhibitions for both galleries and nonprofit spaces and frequently lectures at museums and universities. His work has appeared in numerous periodicals, books, and films internationally. He has written and published more than thirty books on alternative art under the Hardy Marks imprint that he and his wife, Francesca Passalacqua, formed in 1982.
In 2000, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the San Francisco Art Institute. In 2008 he retired from tattooing to concentrate on art making. Hardy divides his time between his studios in Honolulu and in San Francisco.
"all this stuff is just a way to convey some kind of mystery of existence, to provide some kind of reverberation of whatever it is that animates the whole rodeo"
Don Ed Hardy
AVAILABLE ARTWORKS
Winged mermaid
Frontier Justice ( from Tattoo Royale Suite)
Christmas in Hell
Ralph Kramden
Aztec 2 Step
Seeing Asger
Rockabilly Ghost
Zero Gravity (another Joke)
Overboard (Lost at Sea)
On Our Way (Honor Weigh)
Under the Boardwalk
Round Midnight (Meditation)
PRESS / INTERVIEWS / REVIEWS
HyperAllergic
Two Artist Friends Look to Their Roots for the Future
by Matt Stromberg
December 8, 2022
HyperAllergic
Tattoo Artist Ed Hardy Enters Museum Doors
By Emily Wilson
August 20, 2019
JSTOR Daily
Ed Hardy Changed Tattooing Forever
by Allison C. Meier
August 2, 2019
Forbes
A Day At The Whitney With Don Ed Hardy
By Derek Scancarelli
July 15, 2019
Artnet News
Ed Hardy Is Hated for a Fashion Line He Had Little to Do With. A New Museum Show Is His Path to Redemption
By Sarah Cascone
February 28, 2019
Vice
Tattoo Artist Don Ed Hardy on the Evolution of Tattoo Art in America
By Catherine LaSota
June 5, 2015
LA Review of Books
Hate the Brand, Love the Man: Why Ed Hardy Matters
By Margot Mifflin
August 25, 2013
New York Times
Ed Hardy’s Tattoo City
by Louise Rafkin
August 27, 2011
ArtWeek
Don Ed Hardy at Track 16
by Shana Nys Dambrot
June 2011
SF Gate
Don Ed Hardy's tattoos are high art and big business
by Jesse Hamlin
September 30, 2006
Los Angeles Times
His Body of Work
by Lynell George
December 5, 1999
TRACK 16 GALLERY
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TRACK 16 GALLERY
in the Bendix Building
1206 Maple Ave, Suites 100 + 1005
Los Angeles, CA 90015
+1-310-815-8080
Wednesday to Saturday
12-6pm
and by appointment
No entry fee. No reservations necessary.
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