Greg Irons guru
of tattooists
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Graham
commissioned Irons for a series of
posters
for great
bands like Moby Grape, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby-Stills-Nash &
Young,
Albert King and Santana, among others. After working on the Beatles
animated
film “Yellow Submarine” in 1968, he returned to work for Graham
Productions and
began designing album covers. His style and
wit soon brought him to
underground
comics and Greg’s collaborations with writer Tom Veitch in the early
1970s included such titles as “Deviant Slice Funnies”, “Legion of
Charlies”,
and contributions to many other underground comix. His solo comic
“Light
Comitragies” was published in 1971.
In 1982 Irons
went back to San Francisco
tattooing
for Henry
Goldfield. By that time he was having a big influence on the tattoo
world
and his following grew far and wide quickly. His tattoo style was fresh
and modern and his flash designs were shown everywhere. Greg was
prolific during the 2 years he worked with Goldfield and the
stress of the demand and the lifestyle is what likely brought on a
ulcer. Needing a break , Irons took a european vacation of sorts and
went to Amsterdam and then on to Belgium where he tattooed for a
month or so.
On November 14, 1984 Greg was killed by a city bus in Bangkok. He had just received a magic tattoo from a Buddhist monk. He wrote in a postcard that day: The tattoo came complete with religious ceremony at a monastery in the out-back, which took three days to negotiate, but worth it. The 100 year old monk blessed it and gave him a secret mantra to go with it. Gregory Rodman Irons was laid to rest with a Buddhist ceremony at the Berkeley Buddhist Temple on November 24, 1984. 
Greg Irons tattoo work and
influence on the
art
from his
style and his flash has indelibly etched
his presence into the very heart of tattooing. For Tattooists Greg
represents the fresh face of an old friend - a new vision of and old
dream and the art reshaped and highlighted to a new shine. His life was
uncompromised and pure as his art and his potential, not even our
imagination is big enough to speculate and that is worth striving for
as an artist. Tattooist.
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Greg Irons came into the
tattoo
world and the tattoo world sat up and noticed Greg Irons. He is a
legend in the tattoo industry, starting his
tattoo career after establishing himself as a prolific artist. Greg was
born September 29th 1947 in Philadelphia Pennsyslania, his father
in advertising and his mother a registered Nurse. Greg dropped out of
high school in 10th grade and in 1967 he moved to San Francisco. Greg
Irons immediately set out to establish himself as a rock artist
and shortly had the confidence of Bill Graham at Fillmore Auditorium.
In the mid 70s he started doing
book illustrations.
Greg worked for Troubadour Press and Sunset Books as well as doing a
series of coloring books for Bellerophon Books. It was
also around this time he saw some tattoo work by Thom DeVita on a
friend of his, he began to think about tattooing. He had been tattooed
many years
earlier and the tattoo art always fascinated him. He tattooed the word “tattoo” on his left forearm when he was 14.
After buying some tattoo equipment from
Spaulding
& Rogers in 1975 he did his
first tattoo on himself. Crows and a skull on his ankle. After being
introduced to Dean Dennis by a mutual friend he was able to start
working in 1980 at Dean Dennis’s shop in San Francisco. Gregs
work ethic from his commercial career helped forge his mastery of the
art. It
was during this time at Dean’s that Greg drew up his first flash set to
be
produced for sale. Greg worked at Dean’s for a about a year, defining
and refining his unique style. Next Greg made his move up
north to work at the Tattoo Emporium in Seattle with C.J. Danzl and
P.A.
Stephens. This was very productive time and Greg and Pete
produced 2 sets of his most iconic flash there.
