Lyle
Tuttle: The Grand Marshall of Tattooing |
||
| Lyle Tuttle was born in Chariton,
Iowa on
October
7, 1931. His
family were farmers until, when Lyle was very young, his father moved
the
family to Ukiah, California and went into the construction business.
Lyle
grew up
in Ukiah in a home where he said he was never punished for anything. He
said,
they were Iowa farmers but they let me have my own head. And Lyle had a
head for adventure. In 1946 at the
age of
fourteen he took a bus ride to San Francisco where he purchased his
first
tattoo for $3.50. A heart with MOM written in it. His facination with
tattoos
had been opened to the world and he made several more trips after that.
Soon tattooing was in his blood as Lyle set out on that lifes
adventure. In
1949, he began tattooing professionally. ”I'm a total product of good timing. I was the right guy at the right place and the right time.” |
 |
|
|
Lyle had been tattooing a while when he
got
the
opportunity
to work for Bert Grimm at 16 Cedar Way, Long Beach, California. on "The
Pike". Bert then tattooed most of Lyles bodysuit including the iconic Duel in the Sun on Lyles back and his
signature chest piece, the Tattooists Coat
of Arms. In 1954 Lyle found himself in Japan for a time and then in 1957, at Berts
bidding he went to Alaska to work. It was sometime before heading to Alaska that Lyle had met and started tattooing Captain Don Leslie. Lyle was already establishing life long connections with Tattooists worldwide but his friendship with Don was integral to his career and his life. Captain Don, in his reverence for Lyle, later described Lyle as a family man as well as the ultimate Tattoo Man. Don would get tattooed at Lyles house late at night when Lyles 2 children were sleeping. He reflected on the fact that while Lyle was working in Alaska he also had those two, Lyle Jr and Suzzane with him and caring for them on his own at the same time. Lyle and Captain Don were lifelong friends and when Don passed away in 2007, Lyle was at his side.
After tattooing in Anchorage and
then Fairbanks, Lyle wound up back in California
where he opened up
his own shop in 1960 at #30 7th St., in between Mission St. and Market St.,
also
referred to as South of Market, San Francisco, California. Tuttle
tattooed at
#30 7th St., San Francisco, California. for 29 and a half years, until
the 1989
Loma Prieta earthquake caused the building to be yellow tagged. The
shop
reopened soon after at 841 Columbus St. and continues to operate as a
studio
and museum.
|
||
 |
It was Lyles Tattoo Shop on 7th St that landed him right into the line of sight of the emerging world of the sixties. The Love Generation meets the Rolling Stones while Womens Lib, Civil Rights and High Times were the topics of a generation. Art, theater and music were in a renasaisance of new ideas and interpretations. This was an arena that was prime for the art, lifestyle and personage of Lyle Tuttle and it was in that context that Lyle established who he was and what he was about. Lyle Tuttle is noted to have tattooed many high profile clients including Janis Joplin, Cher, Jo Baker, Paul Stanley, and many other notable musicians, actors, and celebrities. He appeared on the cover and in Rolling Stone magazine and was written about in Wall Street Journal. Though Lyle was a “shameless self promoter” as he had been called, he began early in his career, to collect and document the works of Tattooers who came before him. Lyle traveled and continued to add to his tattoos from every corner he traveled. These are the years Lyle saw what was becoming of the old tattooers, they were dissapearing and leaving nothing. He said years later that it touched him and made him angry that they had no legacy after what they pioneered. It motivated him to eventually become the keeper of Tattooing history and the largest collection of Tattoo Artifacts and art in the world. "Women's liberation! One hundred percent women's liberation! That put tattooing back on the map. With women getting a new found freedom, they could get tattooed if they so desired. It increased and opened the market by 50% of the population – half of the human race! For three years, I tattooed almost nothing but women. Most women got tattooed for the entertainment value ... circus side show attractions and so forth. Self-made freaks, that sort of stuff. The women made tattooing a softer and kinder art form." |
|
|
By the time he retired in 1990, Lyle traveled the world giving lectures and visiting Tattooists around the globe. He gave seminars on tattoo machines and historical tattoo artifacts and stories about the pioneers of tattooing he learned of through his travels and correspondances. Lyle Tuttle still collected and researched tattoo history. He amassed not only a vast treasure trove of Tattoo artifacts and memoribilia, he became the most knowldgable source for dating and identifying all of the data associated with the many artisans, their tools, environments, even their frames of mind and personalities. His knack for compiling even the innuendo made for great discertation and story telling. His candor and rancor was light hearted but it always bit just enough that his wit and charm could still win you over.
 
One of Lyles many notable accomplishments was that he had tattooed on and been tattooed on 6 continents of the globe. On January 21, 2014, after a much kept secret travel arrangement, Lyle Tuttle became the first person to tattoo on all seven continents. Accomplished in an impromptu tattoo station in a scientist's guesthouse at the Russian Bellingshausen Station, he tattooed his signature tattoo, his autograph, on project assistant/tattoo historian Anna Felicity Friedman.
 
|
||
Though he retired from his shop in
1990,
Lyle
was
known and
sought after for his tattooed signature. He traveled continuously,
visiting,
lecturing, collecting and documenting tattoo
history. I was pleased once, at a convention, to provide Lyle with my
main outliner, I built it with a Cliff Raven "O" frame RJ Rosini had given
me, so that Lyle could tattoo his signature on Paul Massaro's son
Anthony. Lyle mentioned to me that it was an excellent liner. Lyle properly
identified a number of my machines over the years, including my
Owen Jensen "V" built in Detroit in 1943. Many tattooers and collectors
relied on Lyle to accurately identify tattoo artifacts and history.
