As Don Ed Hardy approaches the steps of the Whitney Museum of American Art, he’s moving slow and steady — and looking sharp.
The 74-year-old artist’s full head of silver hair shines in the sun. He wears a sports jacket with a lively blue shirt tucked into black slacks. His accessories include sunglasses, a watch and a shiny pen sitting in his left breast pocket. A tattoo of a hawk spans the right side of his neck and protrudes from his collar.
In 2019, the tattoo pioneer spends most of his time with his wife of 46 years, Francesca Passalacqua, traveling between Honolulu, San Francisco and New York. Every few months, the couple visits Manhattan to attend art shows, see friends and eat a few good meals.
When he’s not dining out, Hardy logs hours in museums while studying art history. Take for example, a recent exhibit he’d seen on mid-twentieth century Iowa painter Grant Wood, whose work he describes as “brilliant, poignant, bucolic Americana.”
This summer, Hardy dives deeper into the world of American art history, only this time as the subject.
From July 13 through October 6, a collection of Hardy’s work returns to where it all began: in a retrospective exhibit at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Aptly titled Deeper Than Skin, his paintings, drawings, prints and 3-D art — dating back to his 1950s childhood — are all on display.
Hardy’s connection to the San Francisco art scene dates back to 1963, when he enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute with an interest in printmaking. There, he learned drawing from Joan Brown, sculpting from Manuel Neri and etching from Gordon Cook.
By the time he finished at the institute, Hardy earned a full scholarship and a teaching assistant position in the Ivy League at Yale University’s graduate program. But the artist soon underwent dramatic life changes. In a whirlwind, he got married, became a father and quit academia to become a tattooer.
“I thought, ‘Jesus, I don't know if I could deal with teaching art,’” Hardy says. “Now I know I did the right thing. For some weird reason, tattooing was my destiny.”
Ed Hardy wields one of the most recognizable names of the 2000s. During peak success of his clothing brand, celebrities such as Madonna, Sylvester Stallone and the cast of Jersey Shore emerged with his name scribbled across their chests. According to Hardy’s 2013 memoir, Wear Your Dreams: My Life in Tattoos, the clothing line sold more than $700 million in merchandise … in 2009 alone.
But few people outside the world of tattooing understand who Ed Hardy actually is — or what little involvement he had with that clothing brand, its excessively gaudy designs and the zeitgeist that embraced it. In the eyes of tattoo experts, Ed Hardy isn’t just the name of a legend, but a pioneer of the art form. He is widely considered one of the first Americans to cross the Pacific to study under a traditional Japanese tattoo master. And he certainly is not a fashionista.
When Hardy licensed his tattoo designs to French entrepreneur Christian Audigier, he had no clue how popular the brand would become or how heavily his portfolio would be bedazzled. Nor did he anticipate how dissatisfied it would make him feel.
Despite his complex legacy, Hardy is still a godfather in tattoo parlours. On the street, he is rarely recognized. But everywhere he goes, someone knows his name.
Upon entry to the top floor of the Whitney, Hardy exits the elevator with determination. The first room he enters, a minimalist exhibition using canvas, sculpture and light encasements, doesn’t interest him at all. He moves on swiftly, ready to explore Where We Are: Selections from the Whitney's Collection, 1900-1960, an exhibition of paintings focused on “family and community, work, home, the spiritual and the nation.”
Hardy looks enthralled while perusing the works of Jasper Johns, Edward Hopper and more. He admires a painting by Georgia O’Keeffe, citing her abstract portrayal of natural form as a source of inspiration.
He approaches a painting by Clyfford Still, explaining what an important role he played in the first wave of Abstract Expressionism. Still was also a student at the San Francisco Art Institute, the oldest art school west of the Mississippi.
“I’m interested in all types of art that doesn’t have a narrative,” Hardy says. “It doesn’t have to look like a tattoo. It just has to hit you a certain way.”
He shuffles along and approaches a 100-year-old painting by Florine Stettheimer, describing her as an eccentric painter who was only appreciated after her death. He explains that she only had one gallery show. It didn’t sell a single piece.
“She did these kooky things, paintings of common objects — what came to be pop-art in the 60s,” Hardy says. “What an amazing woman.”
He continues: “Those are the kind of artists I really gravitate towards — those who come up with something nobody else has seen, out of their soul without any strategy. Just because they had to do it. I'm into art that people are driven to do without any tactical intent like, ‘I'm going to be famous.’ That's f**ked up. This, it's an impulse.”
After the success of Christian Audgier’s Ed Hardy line, the tattooer put down his machine and retired around 2006. Now he uses his free time entertain his own creative urges. And with a gang of back trouble and hips that have been replaced twice, he’s relieved to let his body rest.
“Tattooing kicks your ass,” he says with a laugh. “It's physically and emotionally really hard. People ask, ‘Oh don’t you miss it?’ I tattooed for 40 years. That was enough.”
In a booming industry, Hardy now holds an emeritus role — a tattoo historian. In New York, he gives lectures to young professionals at shops like Kings Avenue Tattoo in Manhattan. Or he’ll stop by to hang around old-school shops like Smith Street Tattoo Parlour in Brooklyn.
Around 15 years ago, he began coordinating museum exhibits. His most recent installment at the Contemporary Jewish Museum celebrated the life and work of early 20th century tattooist “Lew The Jew” Alberts.
And he’s glad to work on his own art at a leisurely pace, primarily in paint and ink.
“I'm working on my own stuff, but without any real aim,” Hardy says. “I'm just doing it to keep from going crazy.”
After years of tattooing, Hardy now seeks less deliberate work. While he repeatedly asserts that “tattooing has been good to him,” he still classifies it as “commercial art.”
He explains: “Somebody comes in with a recipe: ‘I want this design to be this. It stands for this.’ I would develop it, illustrating it for them to wear. But for my own work, I try to surprise myself. I usually don't even start with an idea. I start moving the brush and see what comes out. I'm much happier when it surprises me.”
Browsing the exhibit, Hardy spots a painting he’s never seen before.
“Elsie Driggs, never heard of her,” he says, moving closer to the placard. “Says she was inspired by a childhood memory of Pittsburgh steel mills.”
He continues: “The things we’re interested in when we're young continue to echo with us. Maybe you wouldn’t predict, ‘I'm going to do paintings of fences because we had a great fence at our house!’ But there's something that lights your brain up and later triggers. You realize, ‘Well, that kinda formed my consciousness.’”
Hardy’s identity started to shape when his father, Wilfred Ivan Samuel Hardy, secured a job in Tokyo after World War II. Eventually, it became clear that he wasn’t coming back and his parents divorced. Despite the split, his father stayed in touch and frequently sent him gifts from Japan.
“I was entranced,” Hardy recalls. “I still have a silk souvenir painting of a dragon up in my studio from when I was that age. It's one of my guiding lights.”
In the mid 50s, 10-year-old Donald Edward Talbott Hardy also drew inspiration from his friend’s father’s army tattoos. He used colored pencils dipped in water to draw anchors, ribbons and hearts on all his neighborhood friends.
Years later, when he forfeited his opportunity at Yale, Hardy’s love for ink was renewed by artist Phil Sparrow in Oakland, a retired college professor whose tattoo designs he copied as a child. It was Sparrow who introduced him to Japanese tattooing.
“I was already hip to Japanese history, culture and woodblock prints,” Hardy explains. “But when he showed me the book of tattooing, it was like lightning came out of it.”
When Hardy finally started tattooing, he moved all around North America from the Bay Area to Vancouver. He studied with Zeke Owen in Seattle and Doc Webb in San Diego.
When he needed a break from the West Coast, Hardy ventured to New York City to visit clients and make connections in the art scene. But despite the Bowery’s rich history of shops dating back to the early 1900s, tattooing was illegal in the five boroughs between 1961 and 1997.
“They claimed that it was a hepatitis scare,” Hardy says. “But the reality was they shut it down on moral grounds. By the time they finally lifted the ban, people were tattooing underground in their apartments.”
He scoffs: “The fact that you could legislate against this thing that's nobody else's f**king business! It was a holdover from 19th century repression.”
In 1969, after years of traveling and tattooing, Hardy finally met his pen pal, the notorious Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins in Honolulu, where the artist had been working for decades. The duo’s friendship flourished as they bonded over their love of Asian aesthetics. Collins quickly became Hardy’s most significant mentor.
Through Collins, Hardy later met Japanese tattoo master Kazou Oguri, also known as Horihide. He then journeyed to Gifu City, Japan, where he learned traditional Japanese style while tattooing Yakuza in secrecy.
When Hardy returned to San Francisco, he opened the first-ever appointment only custom tattoo studio. Combining his American and Japanese techniques with his love for original artwork, he challenged the set parameters of the form.
“Everything was unique,” he says. “I was one of the first guys to say, ‘You bring me your idea and I'll do the thing.’ And I had the art chops to do it.”
Tattoo shops operated simply at that time. A customer looked at the flash sheets on the wall, picked a design and sat down. But Hardy saw room for growth.
“I thought it was stupid that people had to fit their aesthetic into 400 designs,” Hardy says. “I was able to relate to people. That made my success.”
“Ben Shahn was a New Yorker,” Hardy says as he approaches another painting. “Very political guy. Really powerful.”
Hardy explains that it was around the age of 16 that he fell in love with art that made political statements.
“I was raised in an area in Southern California which was totally white and fascist,” he says. “My parents weren't wealthy but the community around us became rich and super-conservative.”
As he aged and learned the power of the medium, Hardy subscribed to the idea that art could change the world.
“Art could challenge the perspective that, ‘If you’re not white and rich, you’re worthless,’” Hardy says. “In a way, it was good to be from a community like that. My friends and I said, ‘We gotta get out of here.’”
Upon entrance to an exhibit entitled An Incomplete History of Protest, Hardy explains that he was always thrilled by the idea of art reacting to societal woes, but was never drawn to creating pieces that were overtly didactic.
“For my interest, art should have mystery to it,” Hardy explains. “When you see it, you don’t know exactly what it’s doing, but it's hitting a chord.”
He continues, pointing to a wall of protest posters: “I'm definitely not opposed to people doing this, though. I'm on the anti-repression side. But I like to ask myself, ‘Why is this affecting me in this way?’”
Hardy figures you can look at tattooing two ways: through a formal lens to analyze technical proficiency; or by understanding the element of human energy. Even after tattooing thousands of clients, he doesn’t take the psychological severity of the exchange lightly.
“You're putting marks on people that are going to be there forever,” he says. “I still think it’s one of the best things about it.”
Hardy admits that for many years, he continued to tattoo not because he could, but because he felt a responsibility to.
“Now there are so many terrific tattooers,” he says. “Forty or 50 years ago, I might’ve said, ‘I'm the only guy that can handle this for this person.’ Now it's been realized as an expressive medium. Now I can do other things.”
Although Hardy keeps tattooing close to his heart, he decries any sense of elitism or puritinical notions of the craft. Surprisingly, he doesn't cringe when shown a photo of an artist tattooing inside the display window of a Saks Fifth Avenue department store.
“Perfect!” he says laughing. “How much further can it go? This would make Sailor Jerry roll over in his grave. But I think it's incredible it’s blossomed with the capability and expertise of the people that are in it now. It broke through even though it was looked down on and demonized.”
And Hardy truly doesn’t resent that tattooing has been commercialized and exited the underground. He finds that sense of disdain to be juvenile.
“That’s for young people,” he says. “They want to feel edgy. This stuff cracks me up.”
He adds: “They're extremely serious because you change yourself for life. But also, f**k it! They're just tattoos. It's inking your skin. Some of these people think they're Rembrandt. All the stuff they do is just going to die. Enjoy it while you’re here.”
It was around 2004 when two men in the clothing business approached Hardy after discovering his work in Juxtapoz Magazine. Although he already made t-shirts to promote his tattoo shop — Ed Hardy’s Tattoo City in San Francisco — he entertained the idea of making an extra buck off his catalog of designs.
The duo’s Los Angeles boutique was then discovered by French entrepreneur Christian Audigier, who was known for taking the signature of Hot Rod pinstriper Kenny “Von Dutch” Howard to the front of celebrities’ trucker hats. It wasn’t long before the new brand snowballed into a worldwide phenomenon.
“It blew me away,” Hardy says. “[Christian] wanted to make a giant global thing. I’d heard bulls**t before, but he was interested in putting up money. He went over to some antique store that a woman had just developed on the Hollywood border and bought her out. He had it painted with blow-ups of my images. He was so connected that he got everybody wearing Ed Hardy. It was nuts.”
In the early aughts, celebrities seen wearing Ed Hardy included: Kim Kardashian, Britney Spears, Snoop Dogg, Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson and Samuel L. Jackson, to name a few.
It was a total shock to the tattooer, who was admittedly turned off by the results of a Google search of the flamboyant designer.
“I looked it up and thought, ‘This is such bulls**t,’” he explains. “On the other hand, I was still making okay money tattooing, but I was getting old and I’d been doing it a long time. For every dollar I earned, my hand was that much sorer. I figured, ‘Who knows what could happen?’ Then it became huge. That was when I was able to stop tattooing.”
While Hardy was flattered by the overnight success of the brand, he had no interest in the glamor of the fashion world. And over time, he became unhappy with the branding and modifications of his designs.
“I'd never swam in those waters,” Hardy says. “The images, whatever it looked like when I painted it in 1968 for the Marine Corp, that was the image, man. That was my art. They began screwing around with this stuff. He started putting his name. It wasn't just Ed Hardy, but it was his signature. One of my partners bought a garment that had Christian Audigier on it multiple times and Ed Hardy once. We were like, ‘This is just not right.’”
When Hardy took meetings with copyright lawyers, he quickly realized how ill-equipped and unenthusiastic he was to navigate the clothing industry. At the litigation’s most stressful points, he feared the worst: losing his home or savings. But after years in court, he managed to regain control of his brand, which he ultimately decided to sell to a management company in Manhattan.
Today, it still operates internationally and Hardy receives the odd royalty check. Although he doesn’t understand what he describes as the “byzantine nature of licensing,” he’s validated by the continued reach of his designs overseas.
In 2015, Christian Audigier died at the age of 57. A beautifully visualized documentary titled The Vif — which includes a glowing interview with Hardy — documents the designer’s life and battle with cancer. Despite their differences, Hardy holds no ill will against Audigier. On the contrary, he has great respect for the businessman — describing him as a “genius promoter” who helped spread his work around the world. From the New York City subway to an airport in India, Hardy continues to be stunned when he sees strangers wearing his drawings.
“It's not like I hated the guy or thought I was prostituting myself,” Hardy says. “I had no illusions. I can grandstand. I can add all the historical or philosophical meanderings about tattooing and that can be part of it. But they’re tattoos. This isn't sacred.”
He adds, to his critics: “People in the tattoo world got really shirty about it, saying I sold out. But I don't feel too bad. It was cool because it disseminated.”
And while he feels he could’ve made out better in his financial dealings, he doesn’t regret it overall.
“I made money,” Hardy explains. “Although it was just a tiny slice of the cake. But I was thrilled I had this happen. My wife and I do a lot of really positive things. Words like ‘wealthy’ or ‘rich,’ they have so many nuances. We're able to live a life that we never dreamed we could.”
As Hardy descends the stairs outside the Whitney, he shifts the conversation from professional to personal. He explains how his mother, Mildred Sandstrom, although supportive of his artwork, never understood his love for tattoos or witnessed his triumphs.
“My mother never recovered,” Hardy says. “She had such high hopes. I was supposed to go to Yale. Then suddenly, ‘Oh my God, Donny is back to tattooing!’ She thought I'd outgrown it when I was 12. It was hard for her. I kept saying, ‘Mom this is gonna be really positive, a good living!’ She died way before she saw it succeed. It’s just the way it goes.”
When Hardy and his wife aren’t out on the town, they can be found in their respective quarters, him drawing or her sewing. He says she’s a great chef, who cooks them pescatarian dishes. And meat isn’t the only indulgence Hardy has forgone.
Over 40 years sober — Hardy quit drinking in 1978 — his mind feels clear and his familial relationships stand strong, including with his 53-year-old son, Doug, from Hardy's first marriage. But none of that was guaranteed. After years of living in excess, he says it took an ultimatum from Francesca to find help.
“It was cosmic,” Hardy says. “I met all these people and realized they come in all shapes, sizes and colors. If you're a drunk, you're a drunk. I had to take it out of being a decision. It’s a condition. It’s fun while it’s fun. But when you f**k up some major things in your life, it’s time to cut it loose.”
He continues: “And you hate that idea, ‘What? I can never drink again?’ It’s terrifying! Look, I'm not out to proselytize. I almost never talk to people about stuff like this. Luckily, I had a fantastic life partner, who still calls me on my s**t all the way around.”
Comfortable and well-adjusted, Hardy is aging gracefully and laughing at the harsh realities of growing old.
“My short term memory is eroding as we speak,” he says with a smile. “The things that happen when you get older are beyond belief. The mental stuff gets spooky. I mean, What the f**k!? They didn’t tell us about this.”
Overall, Hardy calls his life an incredible ride. These days, he finds himself partial to Buddhism and the ideas of karma. And his advice to young people is simple: trust your intuition.
“There are certain things that you’re destined to fall into,” Hardy says. “Or you’re given the opportunity to recognize them. It’s hard to know the right road to travel. As corny as this sounds, find something that feeds your soul, but has a paycheck too. There is a way to bridge that."
He adds: "And remember, the people that really end up changing society, they all came up from the dirt. They didn't come down from the box seats. Maybe some were born with a silver spoon, but most weren’t. And they moved culture forward. That’s really important.”
Follow me on Twitter at @DerekUTG.
