Mitch O’Connell

Ed Hardy, internationally renowned for breathing new life into tattooing, appears in person to discuss his art and life, as collected in the new book Beyond Skin (teNeues). Hardy will sign copies of the book, which contains drawings, prints, paintings, and his newest pieces in porcelain.

This is not Ed Hardy the fashion line. This is Ed Hardy the original, whose artwork integrates iconography from classic tattoo flash and Hollywood cartoons to the Old West, from Asia and Polynesia to Medieval Europe. Hardy achieves beauty by mixing the grotesque, humorous, subtle, and flamboyant.

Beyond Skin is a scintillating overview of an artist who has tapped the pulse of our time and an ideal gift for all who appreciate the mastery of art that defies generalization.

Presented by Last Gasp

Admission: Free

Ed Hardy
Beyond Skin
Text by Alan Govenar

Size: 10 x 12 7/8 in.
240 pp., Hardcover with jacket
c. 200 color illustrations
Text in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian
$ 98
November 2009
ISBN 978-3-8327-9352-4
To be published by teNeues in November 2009
Phone for press (about the book): teNeues, Anshana Arora (212) 627 9090 ext 19
Available from Last Gasp

Ed Hardy

At the age of ten, Don Ed Hardy recognized the unique force of tattoo art. Growing up in the center of 1950s and early 60s California pop culture, he went on to earn an art school degree and then learned to tattoo by apprenticing himself to master artists. Over the past forty years Hardy has revolutionized this ancient tradition while also bringing fresh energy to the classical mediums of painting, printmaking and ceramics through his exhibitions across the United States and abroad. His technical brilliance and mesmerizing imagery have created an indelible style on skin and in the worlds of fashion and contemporary art. Hardy’s sense of design is at once startling, seductive, frightening, and enchanting, transcending categories of time and culture, high and low.
Ed Hardy’s Tattoo City