Exhibit featuring work of tattooist Ed Hardy coming to the de Young this summer

A409151 A work to be featured at the de Young's Ed Hardy: Deeper Than Skin this summer. A409151 A work to be featured at the de Young's Ed Hardy: Deeper Than Skin this summer. Photo: Randy Dodson Photo: Randy Dodson Image 1 of / 10 Caption Close Exhibit featuring work of tattooist Ed Hardy coming to the de Young this summer 1 / 10 Back to Gallery

Few names in the American tattoo history books are better-known than Don Ed Hardy. And with a new retrospective, featuring hundreds of Hardy's works and possessions coming to the de Young Museum this summer, tattoo collectors can get a glimpse into the life of a legend.

These days, Hardy is retired in San Francisco, after moving to the Bay Area more than 50 years ago to attend the San Francisco Art Institute. While a student there, studying printmaking, he visited the Legion of Honor for the first time to see the master prints from the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts with his peers; as the de Young curators note, he was so inspired by works there by Goya, Rembrandt and Dürer that he kept returning, drawing inspiration for his work.

RELATED: Don Ed Hardy's tattoos are high art and big business

Then in 1966, Hardy got his first tattoo from Phil Sparrow. The young artist was so taken by a book on Japanese tattooing he found through Sparrow that he began studying the art.

The de Young's exhibit on Hardy's life features 40 prints from a larger collection he donated to the museum in 2017. The works pay homage to the Achenbach images that moved him in the nascent days of his career. Some prints, the museum details, are from Hardy's days as a student at SFAI.

The exhibit will also feature other Hardy pieces, including one 500-foot scroll on which Hardy painted 2,000 dragons over the course of 24 years (1976-2000) to honor the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac. Additional drawings — including some of which he created as a child — as well as paintings and three-dimensional works made in collaboration with Brisbane's Trillium Graphics, will also appear.

RELATED: Don Ed Hardy, fine art tattoos' illustrating man

"While Ed is widely known as an iconic tattoo artist, we're excited that visitors will see another side of him and become more familiar with works from his own artistic practice," says Karin Breuer, curator in charge of the Achenbach. "Since retiring from active tattooing in 2008, he's created a significant body of art in a range of styles and imagery, each piece incorporating elements of conventional tattooing with traditional fine art."

The exhibit, Ed Hardy: Deeper Than Skin, opens at the de Young on July 13, 2019.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.

