Don Ed Hardy
Victory
2008
acrylic, ink on paper mounted on board
10 5/8 x 9 1/2 inches
I just recently learned about an art show featuring new work from tattoo legend and accomplished fine artist Don Ed Hardy. He’s got a duo show up with some guy named Ron Nagle, but it’s only up through the end of today, Saturday January 10. I haven’t been able to get my shit together to check it out, and I won’t within the next 12 hours. Bummer.
I’ve been a fan of Hardy since just before I started getting tattooed (at the ripe old age of 26). And not just his tattoo work — which is phenomenal, no doubt — but also of the other styles he employs in various media, from etching prints to painting. Through a fortunate set of circumstances that have nothing to do with me personally, I have a couple of original Hardy lithograph prints from the mid-1960s, and they’re prized among my meager art collection. One, a small, unsigned self-portrat of the artist in a floppy hat and glasses, is actually in his book, Tattooing The Invisible Man; the other is a signed and dated print of a pot with a feathers in it (pictured, “Feather Bouquet,” May 1964), a Hardy piece that I’ve never seen anywhere else. A veteran tattooer I know once offered me a hefty sum of loot for both prints, but because they’re sort of family heirlooms, I can’t see getting rid of ‘em at any price.
As far as I’m concerned, Don Ed Hardy’s down-by-law credentials as a fine artist make up for the ubiquitous and super gaudy Christian Audigier-partnered clothing brand that bears Hardy’s name. My friend Serg said it was the fashion equivalent of Three 6 Mafia doing a song with Linkin Park (Hardy being Three 6, and Audigier being Linkin Park, in case you were wondering), and I couldn’t agree more.
At any rate, you should go see this before the Rena Bransten Gallery in SF closes tomorrow, and let me know how it is. I can’t make it, got other plans.