DON ED HARDY Eye on the Prize, 2005 color woodcut on Japanese Kozo paper, ed. of 20 17 x 12 inches Price: $750 Courtesy of HuiPress, Maui, Hawaii

Born in Southern California in 1945, Hardy revived a childhood fascination with the art of tattoo and underwent a tattoo apprenticeship while also working toward his BFA in printmaking, which he received in 1967 from the San Francisco Art Institute. He developed the fine art potential of tattoo with an emphasis on its Asian tradition, and lived in Japan for the first time in 1973 to study with a traditional tattoo master—the first non-Asian to gain access to that world. Since 1974 he has specialized in unique tattoo commissions in his San Francisco studio.

Hardy has adapted tattoo imagery in his work as a painter and printmaker. Eyes on the Prize is a complex color woodcut that makes use of distinctly Asian motifs—the rampant tiger, the elaborate waterfall—along with an unexpectedly light-hearted “prize”: a luscious strawberry. This limited edition print was published by HuiPress, operating on Maui, to commemorate Wood Skin Ink, an exhibition of traditional and contemporary tattoo art.