Lyle Tuttle: Popular Tattoo Artist

Lyle Tuttle is a popular and admired American tattoo artist. He started out as a professional tattoo artist in 1946 – I understand the surprise!

He was only 18 at the time, and listen to this – He supposedly bought his first tattoo at age 14 for $3.50! (I know 3 dollars was a lot of money back then but still…)

A true Californian at heart Tuttle opened up his first tattoo parlor in San Francisco in 1954 and this shop reportedly stayed in business for 30 years (considering the fact that normal folk considered tattoos a big taboo back then – that’s a feat indeed!) He is popularly known for his work on the likes of Janis Joplin, Cher, Henry Fonda, Paul Stanley and several other renowned musicians and celebrities; Tuttle has now, himself, become a celebrity and a legend in his Industry.

His fame, back in the day, was rather notorious. Many of his peers (other tattoo artists) disliked his “shameless self-promotion” and his statements to the press. It is said that Sailor Jerry (another prominent American tattoo artist) put a picture of Tuttle which was on the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine (October 1970) inside his toilet.

Apparently, many today asked similar questions like I did when I first read about Tuttle. When asked how his early career in tattooing gained popularity, he said: “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 – hell 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.”

These days Tuttle teaches after having retired from tattooing in 1990. He conducts seminars at tattoo conventions on Tattoo machine maintenance and machine building.
He is proud to have never (deliberately) tattooed a minor, and although retired, tattoos his autograph on a friend once in a while.