San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Detail of an artwork in the exhibition “Tattoos in Japanese Prints” at the Asian Art Museum.
S.F. exhibitions fill in details about long, rich history, today’s masters
The practice of tattooing dates back to ancient civilizations. Mummies adorned with tattoos include Otzi, the Iceman, with lines and crosses placed about his body; Amunet, a priestess of the goddess Hathor, a mummified torso with circular patterns of dots and dashes; and the tattooed mummies from Tarim Basin in China featuring images of the sun, scroll patterns, oval shapes and crescent moons.
They’ve also piqued the interest of museum curators, with tattoo-themed exhibitions in the United States and abroad including three in San Francisco: “Tattoos in Japanese Prints,” which opened Friday, May 31, at the Asian Art Museum; “Lew the Jew and His Circle: Origins of American Tattoo,” closing Sunday, June 9, at the Contemporary Jewish Museum; and “Ed Hardy: Deeper Than Skin,” opening July 13 at the de Young Museum.
“As the popularity of tattoos has accelerated, we seem to have reached a tipping point where we want to explore and understand the origins and evolution of tattooing,” says Laura Allen, chief curator and curator of Japanese art at the Asian Art Museum. “‘Tattoos in Japanese Prints’ is a great way to start that exploration, since it dives into the early history and the art that started it all.” With more than 60 works from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, collection, the exhibition examines the interplay between woodblock prints by artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi and his contemporaries, full-body tattoos in 19th century Japan, and Kabuki theater.
Spurred by the heroic figures in “Water Margin,” Shi Nai’an’s 14th century Chinese novel, Kuniyoshi created the print series “One Hundred and Eight Heroes of the Popular Water Margin” (1827-30). He adorned these characters with highly detailed full-body tattoos depicting dragons, eagles, peonies and more. Fashionable urbanites sought these motifs during a four-decade tattoo boom that began in 1868 — and they remain in demand today.
“As a student of the Japanese tattoo, we have many influences. Our entire artistic style is built upon the work of masters like Hokusai, Kuniyoshi, Kyosai, Kano Hogai, Soga Shohaku, Toyokuni — there are too many to list here,” says Taki Kitamura, a tattoo artist since 1998 and owner of State of Grace Tattoo in San Jose. The exhibition at the Asian Art Museum features many such masterpieces.
On June 13, Kitamura moderates “Japanese Tattoos: The Visual Splendor of the Floating World,” a discussion with tattoo artists Hardy, Mary Joy Scott and Junii Shimada. On July 13, he’ll participate in a live tattooing event with Horitomo, Scott and Colin Stevens.
“The oldest mummies and cave paintings show a desire, maybe a need, for humans to decorate themselves. In this day and age, tattooing has such a broad definition, there literally is something for everyone,” says Kitamura of people’s continual fascination with tattoos.
At the de Young Museum, the idea for the “Ed Hardy: Deeper Than Skin” exhibition germinated after Hardy donated his collection of 152 prints to the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts at the Legion of Honor in 2017.
“I had frequently studied classical prints at the Achenbach when I was an undergraduate student at the San Francisco Art Institute,” says Hardy, who majored in printmaking. “I’m very prolific, and in addition to the tens of thousands of tattoos I did over about 40 years, I continued drawing, painting and doing my personal art that was made with no intention of becoming a tattoo. There’s an enormous range, and I think people will be excited to see my work
beyond tattooing.”
The first museum retrospective of his career, it follows five decades of his creative journey and features more than 300 etchings, drawings, paintings, prints and three-dimensional objects.
They range from a sheet of lined paper on which a young Hardy drew skull and heart designs for his kiddie tattoo shop to a detail of “2000 Dragons,” a 500-foot scroll painted with 2,000 dragons, which Hardy envisioned in 1976 and waited 24 years to complete to honor the millennial year and the Year of the Dragon.
“After hanging out on the Long Beach Pike (a vintage Southern California amusement park), I learned how to draw tattoo designs. When I was 10, I established my very own tattoo shop in the den of my family home,” Hardy says. “I used to apply tattoos with colored pencils and my mother’s Maybelline eyeliner. I also put hand-poked tattoos on myself and several friends with a sewing needle and India ink. Spending time on the pike and visiting the tattoo parlors taught me the basics of classic American tattoo and design.”
A significant aspect of “Ed Hardy: Deeper Than Skin” points to his contributions as both a pioneer of 20th century tattooing and a fine artist.
“From the very beginning, Ed Hardy has been on the leading edge of tattoo innovation, with a focused goal of elevating tattoo to a more important art form. When Hardy started tattooing in 1967, he was one of the few tattooists trained in fine art and reinforced by his many visits to the Legion of Honor,” says Karin Breuer, curator in charge of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
It wasn’t as common for tattooists to be trained in fine art at that time, Breuer said. “Hardy was also the first American tattooist to live and work in Japan, in 1973, absorbing the Japanese technique and subject repertoire, in order to understand a tattoo culture that was quite different from his — and America’s — own.” He set up a practice in San Francisco in 1974.
Tattoo artist Taki Kitamura has a theory about our continual fascination with tattoos.
“Personally, I think they remind us of being alive and to appreciate the brevity of life. The tattoo may be permanent to the wearer but certainly reminds us of the impermanence of our own existence.”