One of the greatest Tebori masters was born Yoshihito Nakano on March 9th, 1946. Like many tattooers, he had an early interest in the tattoo arts and his first forays into it were experimental in nature, crudely executed on his own body. At the age of twenty one, he met the man who would become his master, Yoshitsugu Muramatsu, Horiyoshi of Yokohama. Like many apprenticeships all over the world, the apprentice often begins as a client. In this case, the client would prove his devotion by obtaining and enduring a full long sleeve body suit, tattooed entirely by hand. In 1971, Horiyoshi retired and named two apprentices to continue his lineage. He passed the title "Horiyoshi II" to his own son and the title "Horiyoshi III" to Yoshihito Nakano, his star pupil.
Horiyoshi III describes his master as a man with the truest passion for tattooing and has worked diligently to honor this ethic. In the mid-eighties Horiyoshi III came in contact with Don Ed Hardy, a union that would change his life in many ways and start a lifelong artistic and spiritual friendship. This was also the point when he began using electric machines, a process he would use in conjunction with the traditional hand needles to create a new world of Japanese tattoo art. Machine outlines have allowed Horiyoshi III to realize his own expanded repertoire of designs and with the utmost respect to past masters of the woodblock print world, he is creating a new pool of tattoo art. To this end he has published three collections of tattoo art, 100 Demons, 108 Heroes of the Suikoden and The Namakubi. He has also opened a tattoo museum with his wife in an effort to further educate the Japanese public about the global history and artistic merit of the tattoo. Even now, with over thirty years of tattooing, Horiyoshi III tattoos six days a week and plans to do so until his hands give out.
