Don Ed Hardy is an American tattoo artist raised in Southern California. He was a pupil of Sailor Jerry Collins. Through his association with Sailor Jerry, Hardy was invited to study tattooing in Japan in 1973 with the Japanese classical tattoo master, Horihide. He became recognized for incorporating Japanese tattoo aesthetic and technique into his American style work.^[1]

 

In 1982, Hardy and his wife formed Hardy Apero Marks Publications. Under this marque, they began publishing the five book series Tattootime. Tattootime was one of several publications which did much to promote and popularize tattooing with new audiences.^{[citation needed]} Hardy Marks has gone on to publish more than 20 books^[quantify], including catalogs of Hardy's work and that of Sailor Jerry Collins.

 

Today, Hardy is retired from doing actual tattoos, but oversees and mentors the artists at his San Francisco studio, Tattoo City. Since the 1960s, he has concentrated heavily on non-tattoo based art forms, especially printmaking, drawing, and painting.

 

With 40 years of tattooing and legendary status among the tattoo community, Don Ed hardy is known as the God father of tattoo for hid sophistication, depth & sense of experimentation. Californian native Don Ed hardy is recognised around the world for his technical brilliance & mesmerising imagery. Don Ed Hardy pulls from life experience to meld American, Japanese, Cholo, tattoo, Surf & hotrod iconography. This broad spectrum of taste & experience, coupled with an ongoing investigation of various art histories & a mastery of technique, give his work a unique range & depth

 

Don Ed Hardy is a painter, printmaker and tattoo artist. Fascinated by tattoos since child=hood hardy has become a master of his craft while continuing his work in the more traditional mediums of painting and drawing.

 

In 2000 he completed a 500 foot long scroll painting of 2000 dragons in honour of the turning of the millennium and the dragon year. The scroll has been exhibited at track 16 gallery in Santa Monica, The museum of contemporary art in Denver, The Cuenca Bienal in Ecuador and the yerba Buena centre for the arts in San Francisco.

 

Don Ed hardy curated the exhibition, “Pierced hearts and True Love” which was shown at the Drawing centre in New York in September 1995 and travelled to several other museums. His work is represented in the collections at the Honolulu academy of Art, the contemporary museum Honolulu, The San Francisco fine arts museum Achenbach collection and the university of Colorado fine art galleries

 

In 2002, Hardy was approached by Ku USA, Inc. to produce a line of clothing based on Hardy's art, and a license agreement was signed. Within two years, the collection had drawn the interest of Saks companies. Hardy and Ku USA formed Hardy Life LLC, which holds the trademark ownership as well as the copyrights to all his images.

 

In 2004, Christian Audigier licensed the rights to produce the Ed Hardy clothing line, which is based on Hardy's imagery. Prior to the Ed Hardy clothing line, Audigier was the Head Designer at Von Dutch Originals, which marketed the imagery of Kenny Howard. Audigier has attempted to replicate the marketing techniques employed by Von Dutch Originals, by marketing directly to celebrity clients and by opening stores in high profile fashion districts. Ed Hardy stores are located in many locations internationally including the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

 

In May 2009, Iconix Brand Group, Inc. announced that the Company has acquired a 50% interest in Hardy Way, LLC, the owner of the Ed Hardy brand and trademarks. The Company paid $17 million for its interest in Hardy Way, consisting of $9 million in cash and $8 million in stock. In addition, the sellers could be entitled to receive an additional $1 million in stock pursuant to an earn-out based on 2009 royalties received by Hardy Way. Hardy Way estimates that 2009 royalty revenue will be approximately £10 million.

 

 

 

Ed Hardy @ 33.ie

At 33.ie we have a huge selection of Authentic Don Ed hardy Products. From the very latest in Mens & Womens clothing and Shoes to Shot Glasses and Laptop bags.

 

Don Ed Hardy is a famous American tattoo artist and is known as a legend, or the "Godfather of tattoo art" in the tattoo world due to the sophisticaion and depth of his art. He is also a well accomplished painter and print maker. Don Ed Hardy has arguably done some of the most intricate and inspiring tattoos in the world by combining Japanese and Asian, Choclo, hotrod and American surf cultures. Born in 1945 and raised in southern California, Ed Hardy had a lifelong interest in becoming a tattoo artist. While studying print art in California in the late 1960s Ed Hardy did an apprenticeship to become a tattoo artist. In the early 1970s Ed Hardy lived in Japan where he studied tattoo art under Sailor Jerry Collins. In Japan Ed Hardy improved his technique for doing Asian tattoo art. Since the 1980s Ed Hardy build up one of the most famous tattoo art businesses in the world in San Francisco and has published many books about tattoo art. Ed Hardy's involvement with clothing and fashion emerged in 2002 when a deal was signed wiht Ku USA to make a line of clothing based on Ed Hardy's tattoo art.

In 2004, Christian Audigier, the famous French-born fashion designer licensed the rights to produce clothing and Ed Hardy Tee shirts based on Ed Hardy's tattoo art. Christian Audigier is one of the most famous fashion designers in the world and is widely said to be a marketing genious for launching and creating brand names. Christian Audigier has made major contribuitons to the success of major name brands including Diesel, Levi's and American Outiftters. Following Christian Audigier's marketing success with the Von Dutch line of clothing and accessories, Christian Audigier made the Ed Hardy fashion line an immediate global sensation by marketing the products to celebrities including Madona and Britney Spears and opening shops in high-end fashion locations all over the world. In 2008 Christian Audigier launched Ed Hardy Fragrances, a women's perfume, which became an instant sensation in the fashion world. Today Ed Hardy t shirts have become so famous that they can be seen from college dorms across America, the Sunset strip in Hollywood, California to Johannesburg, South Africa and the Sunshine Coast of Australia.

 

iant goldfish and fiery dragons. Blondes in roses and skulls in leather helmets — with no shortage of blingy goodness. Call it biker chic for the Robertson Boulevard set.

This is the Ed Hardy brand, based on the work of Don Ed Hardy, the “godfather of modern tattoo,” and pioneered by French-born, LA-based fashion mogul Christian Audigier, whose meteoric rise in the fashion world has been built on in-your-face cuts, imagery, and tomorrow’s take on street style. Audigier’s Hollywood- and rock-friendly brands also include teen-focused Crystal Rock, Latin-inspired Paco Chicano, an eponymous line, and the official Johnny Hallyday brand, Smet.

When one-namers like Madonna, Britney, and Diddy are often snapped wearing Hardy and Smet, you can bet the average consumer feels like a renegade rock star in an Audigier T-shirt. But despite the star power, Audigier’s brands still needed to reach the retailers who could move the merchandise. For Audigier, that meant an annual presence at the Magic Marketplace — the apparel industry’s biggest buyer event, held twice a year in Las Vegas.

Initially, Audigier thrived at the semiannual Magic events, even going so far as to be named the featured designer at the February 2008 event, after ringing up $35 million in orders on the show floor at the August 2007 event. Yet as his brands, space, and general force of presence at Magic grew — his 1,500-square-foot space at the February 2008 marketplace, for example, featured an in-booth concert by Snoop Dogg — the prescribed, more formal confines of the traditional trade show environment began to chafe.

Exhibitors who shared the hall with his brands complained about loud music, smoke machines, and provocatively dressed models and dancers in his booths. Audigier, true to form, saw it as just another testimony that he was on the right track. So after the February 2008 Magic Marketplace, he began to reevaluate his relationship with the traditional apparel shows. His current market share and presence, he thought, would allow him to meet the market in his way, on his brands’ terms. Instead of cramping his message to fit somebody else’s rules, he would capitalize on the energy and the momentum of his brands, and roll his own way. The next time, it would be au revoir Magic, bon jour proprietary branded environment: One where bravura and decibels were prized, not shunned. Welcome to When I Move, You Move (WIMYM).

“When I Move You Move means ‘If you like me, come. If you don’t, don’t come,’” Audigier says. “It’s a different way of doing business. Through my lines I have created a story and a lifestyle, and I want to express that with my show. I didn’t want just another trade show; I wanted an experience that people will never forget.”

Don Ed Hardy is an American tattoo artist raised in Southern California. He was a pupil of Sailor Jerry Collins. Through his association with Sailor Jerry, Hardy was invited to study tattooing in Japan in 1973 with the Japanese classical tattoo master, Horihide. He became recognized for incorporating Japanese tattoo aesthetic and technique into his American style work.^[1]

In 1982, Hardy and his wife formed Hardy Apero Marks Publications. Under this marque, they began publishing the five book series Tattootime. Tattootime was one of several publications which did much to promote and popularize tattooing with new audiences.^{[citation needed]} Hardy Marks has gone on to publish more than 20 books^[quantify], including catalogs of Hardy's work and that of Sailor Jerry Collins.

Today, Hardy is retired from doing actual tattoos, but oversees and mentors the artists at his San Francisco studio, Tattoo City. Since the 1960s, he has concentrated heavily on non-tattoo based art forms, especially printmaking, drawing, and painting.

In 2000, he was appointed by Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown to that city's Cultural Arts Commission^[2].

Forty years ago Don Ed Hardy blew off a Yale fine-art fellowship to pursue the rogue art of tattoo a timeless and often taboo tradition that captivated him as a boy in the Orange County beach town of Corona del Mar. By 10 he was drawing cars and eagles on kids' backs and arms with wet colored pencils and Maybelline eyeliner.

At the San Francisco Art Institute in the early '60s Hardy mastered the demanding art of intaglio etching under the tutelage of the late Gordon Cook a no-jive blue-collar guy who instilled in Hardy a love of craft Asian art and the quiet power of Giorgio Morandi's little still life pictures. Cook wasn't pleased when his gifted protege jumped into the socially murky waters of tattoo. But it worked out well for the plucky Hardy boy who blurred the supposed boundary between "high" and "low" art and carved a path through the worlds of art and commerce. He has drawn images on torsos canvases and giant scrolls with equal conviction and aplomb.

A tattoo innovator and historian who expanded the palette and pictorial possibilities of custom-made body art Hardy who will talk about his far-ranging work at a free slide-show lecture at Mills College on Wednesday is also a prolific lithographer painter and etcher. His blazing images of devils dragons bearded ladies and Buddhas -- informed by old master etchings 12th century Japanese "hell" scrolls and 19th century woodblock prints Southern California hot-rod striping and the funk and humor of Bay Area art -- are widely exhibited and collected. And for the past year or so his early tattoo images the "retro" skulls sailor girls and derby-topped dragons now in vogue have appeared on T-shirts jackets motorcycles and even energy drinks sold worldwide under the Ed Hardy brand.

There are now Ed Hardy stores in New York Los Angeles Tucson and Dubai. That $20 million-a-year business of which Hardy gets a small slice for licensing his name and art is the handiwork of French-born marketing ace Christian Audigier who pushed the Von Dutch brand and now has everybody from Madonna to Larry King draped in Hardy. It's a pleasing turn of events for an artist who made his bones tattooing daggered hearts and anchors on sailors in San Diego in the raffish old days before body art became respectable. Now it almost seems as if there's a Sta

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