Lyle Tuttle
Tattoo Artist who Changed History
It was in 1946 that Lyle got inked for the first time. He was fourteen years old, enamoured by US army service men and war vets, he got the classic heart with “MOM” tattooed on the inside of his arm. Sixty-two years later, Lyle’s body is covered from neck to ankle. A work of art and a script of his life – the kind that any film executive with a two bit brain would jump on.
In 1949, at the young age of seventeen, Lyle embarked on his career tattooing soldiers, marines, navy men and the air force. Women didn’t get tattooed in those days. However, over fifteen years later, with his tattoo parlour parked beside the Greyhound Bus Station in San Francisco, Lyle was at the epicenter of the hippie movement, which encompassed Women’s Liberation, civil rights, off the grid communes and anti-war activists. The barber, located at the crossroad of Haight-Ashbury was forced to quit as no one wanted their hair cut; but they sure wanted a tattoo to mark the changing times.
In a single day, Lyle would do a Black Panther tattoo, confederate flag, and peace sign – a convergence of all the forces present at this poignant moment in history.
I imagine nineteen year olds unloading off bus after bus coming from New York, Texas, Washington, Florida and Canada…filling the streets and aimlessly wandering high, searching for their place and purpose. They grew up in conservative 1950’s households, and arrived on a quest for change, beaming with excitement and lust for a new life. I then imagine Lyle looking out his window from the tattoo parlour, soaking it all in. Although cliché, I can’t help but hear Bob Dylan’s “The Times they are a Changin’”.
So who else frequented Lyle’s tattoo shop? Janis Joplin. After she read an article about him in the San Jose Mercury paper, she decided she wanted in on this new phenomenon. She went to Lyle and got a bracelet on her wrist, and they became good friends.
Lyle’s description of Janis certainly lives up to her reputation:
“She was a wild and crazy star.”
It was hard to find time to just hang with Janis, as the entourage would always be in tow. Lyle relays that when Janis heard from the bird that his little mini cooper with white and silver stripes tore through Larkspur California – Janis’s last address – she would call him up with a kind of ‘Hey Man, you came through town and didn’t visit?.’
A year later, Janis was found dead from a heroin overdose at the Landmark Motel in Larkspur - less than a month after Jimi Hendrix’s death, and ten months shy of Jim Morrison. All accomplished so much before even their thirtieth year.
When word got out that Lyle had tattooed Joplin, well the women swarmed in to get replicas. In a 1970 article with Time Magazine, it mentions how Lyle, within just that year, did over 100 replicas.
His name became synonymous with the Tattoo Renaissance, but perhaps most controversially for playing an integral role in the tattooing of women.
Life, Time, The Johnny Carson Show, The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder; Lyle was featured in them all. What seems so normal now, was absolutely taboo then. So we can all thank Lyle a little bit, for contributing to the initial acceptance of tattooed women.
Lyle says with a snicker:
“I’ve seen more panty lines than gynecologists.”
And further remarks, “That’s what fired my rocket, the women.”
He held the same tattoo studio in San Francisco for 29 years. Now Lyle resides in the quiet California home that he grew up in, outside of the city. He tours tattoo festivals all over the world, and will be attending Toronto’s 10th Annual Northern Ink Xposure festival this upcoming week.
Although he doesn’t practice any more, he will ink his autograph on your body – if you have all the equipment ready at hand. He’s that famous.
After our call, I can’t help but feel ‘HOLY F*CK, has this man ever lived an interesting life.’
He concurs, “I feel I’m the most fortunate man in the world.”
