Tattooing the Invisible Man: Bodies of Work Hardcover February 1, 2000

California native Don Ed Hardy was determined to be a tattoo artist at the age of ten and has been tattooing professionally since 1967. Fusing Asian aesthetics, traditional Japanese art, Western art history, and the imagery of surf culture, hot-rod art, and California funk, he has been instrumental in developing tattooing's artistic potential and fueling the late-century international tattoo boom. Tattooing the Invisible Man presents a survey of Hardy's paintings, etchings, lithographs, drawings, photographs, and elaborate tattoos, most never before published. Exploring the wide visual/cultural spectrum of Hardy's many influences as well as the profound involvement of his work within this same spectrum, Tattooing the Invisible Man is a magnificent chronicle of a powerful and uniquely extreme body of work.