Lyle Tuttle, San Francisco’s most noted illustrated man and also referred to as the father of modern tattooing, was arguably one of the most legendary tattoo artists of modern times.
He passed away on March 25, 2019, after a career in tattooing that lasted 70 years. Which he celebrated last year with a lifetime retrospective.
His death has sparked countless tributes from the online tattoo community. He was hugely respected, and he truly left an indelible mark on society, and this article is our tribute to Lyle.
I clearly remember when I saw Lyle Tuttle for the very first time, portrayed within a tattoo book in Amsterdam, almost 30 years ago. I was so incredibly fascinated by his iconic bodysuit, which he completed at a very young age, around 1966. Most of his work has been done by another historical tattoo artist, Bert Grimm. Just try to imagine what it meant to carry a full bodysuit over 50 years ago.
Lyle was born in Iowa in 1931 and raised in California. This is how Lyle described his early fascination for tattoos:
“I was 10 years and two months old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. All through the war, when servicemen returned home either on leave or maybe discharged from being wounded, many had sporting tattoos. To a kid my age, those tattoos were “hot shit.”. Those tattoos were living proof of a great adventure, with travel and romance combined. It meant that this guy had been out of the valley, over the horizon, and in places I had never heard of. WOW!
So that’s why tattoos have always been special to me. Tattoos are travel marks or stickers on your luggage. Tattoos are special; you have to go off and earn them. You can go into a jewelry store and buy a big diamond, slip it on your finger, and walk out. It’s not like that when you go into a tattoo shop and pick a big tattoo and pay for it. Now you got to sit down and take it.”
Lyle’s “hard top” 1937 Ford Coupe with Calvin “Full Race” Coolidge Camini of Ukiah Automotive Machine Shop, Ukiah, CA, 1949.
When Lyle was 14 in 1946, he felt an itch to ink his own skin. So one day he cut school, boarded a Greyhound bus from his hometown of Ukiah in Mendocino County to San Francisco, and got his first piece—a heart with the word “mother”—for $3.50.
He began tattooing 3 years later, in 1949, and he worked at several parlors around Alaska and California, primarily under the tutelage of tattoo icon Bert Grimm. He eventually opened his own second-floor tattoo parlor in 1960 on Seventh Street in San Francisco, near the old Greyhound bus station.
Lyle tattooing at #30, 7th Street, San Francisco, CA, 1960.
Lyle Tuttle business card.
Lyle was working on a backpiece in the late 1960s.
In the early 1960s, Tuttle spearheaded the movement to legitimize tattoos.
Here we see Tuttle famously featured on the October 1970 cover of Rolling Stone, where he is photographed by Annie Leibovitz and interviewed by Dick Cavett. He would tattoo a who’s-who of 1970s pop artists, including Cher, the Allman Brothers, and a particularly famous heart on Janis Joplin’s breast. A 1973 New York Times article credited his work on Joplin with popularizing tattoos among women.
Joplin was known for being the first celebrity with a visible tattoo. She claimed that the symbol, to her, stood for the liberation of women. Tuttle told Prick Magazine in 2011 that women were responsible for the resurgence in tattooing. “One hundred percent women’s liberation! That put tattooing back on the map. With women’s newfound freedom, they could get tattooed if they so desired. It increased and opened the market for 50% of the population—half of the human race! For three years, I tattooed almost nothing but women. The women made tattooing a softer and kinder art form.”.
He frequently credited the women’s liberation movement for the tattoos’ golden age.
In 2014, Tuttle earned the distinction of becoming the first person to tattoo on all seven continents after tattooing historian Dr. Anna Felicity Friedman at the Russian Bellingshausen Station in Antartica.
“Because I was lucky to have the greatest time slot that any artist ever had in tattooing, it wound up that I had tattooed on six continents,” he said at the time. “So I had an opportunity to tattoo on seven continents. Well, I’m not out to break any records, but why not do it? It’s there!”
Even though he mostly retired from putting his needle to skin in 1990, Tuttle continued to host an annual tattoo convention in St. Louis and traveled as an educator and historian.
He also opened The Lyle Tuttle Tattoo & Museum in San Francisco. It features his own collection of tattoo memorabilia, in an effort to preserve tattoo history for future generations.
VIDEO ARCHIVE
PHOTO GALLERY
Lyle Tuttle & Chadwick, his English Bull Terrier, 1972. Notice the tattoo on Chadwick’s inner leg!
After tattooing in Anchorage and Fairbanks, AK, and Oakland, CA., Lyle opened up shop in 1960 at #30 7th St., in between Mission St. and Market St., also referred to as South of Market, San Francisco, CA.
Front of 841 Columbus St., San Francisco, CA, circa 1989.
Lyle with Matt Gone and Mary Jane Haake, which also owns Dermal Source.
Lyle Tuttle with his iconic bodysuit replica.
LYLE TATTOO ORIGINAL FLASH DESIGNS
Here below are Lyle’s original flashes, initially published on his website, www.lyletuttle.com/. However, the website does not appear to be being maintained anymore, and some pages are no longer working. I have been able to extract these pictures (before they will eventually go lost forever), but please note that these are for educational purposes only.
WTE ON LYLE TUTTLE WEBSITE
For us, it’s an incredibly big honor to have World Tattoo Events listed on the links page of Lyle’s website. The first link out of 3.
This article has been made possible thanks the special contribution of Dermal Source.
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