Tattoo Masters: Lyle Tuttle – [2021 Information Guide]
Lyle Tuttle made tattoos cool when he inked legendary rocker Janis Joplin in 1970.
When he passed away last year at age 87, Tuttle was a bona fide legend in modern tattooing. He helped the tattoo world expand into a $5bn a year business catering to everyday folk along with celebrities, sailors, soldiers, and outsiders.
“Show me a man with a tattoo and I’ll show you a man with an interesting past,” he told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2002.
“Tattoos are like plaques or postcards. They are a montage of your life. They tell stories.”
Read on to learn more about the life and art of the incomparable tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle.
Early Life and Career Beginnings
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Lyle Gilbert Tuttle. Born October 7, 1931. He moved to the Ukiah Valley in Northern California as a child with his cattle farming parents to escape drought in the Midwest.
As a young teen Lyle saw illustrated troops returning from World War II with decorated skin – these soldiers and sailors offered a glimpse into the world outside Ukiah.
Tuttle jumped on a bus to San Francisco and got his first piece of body art, the quintessentially traditional heart inked around the word “Mother” for the princely sum of $3.50.
His tattooist was San Francisco legend Ralph “Duke” Kaufman, who Tuttle dropped out of school to work for soon after getting etched for the first time.
Tuttle served with the Marines during the Korean War then honed his needle craft with pioneering Long Beach artist Bert Grimm in the mid-1950s, before tattooing solo in Anchorage Alaska, a place devoid of tattoo artists.
In 1960 Tuttle returned close to home, opening his first shop, the iconic Lyle Tuttle Tattoo Shop on Seventh Street in San Francisco.
