Jack Rudy

Jack Rudy is an American tattoo artist notable for his development of the black-and-gray style of tattooing, including realistic portraits, and his use of a single needle for fine line work.^[1]

After leaving the Marines in 1975, Rudy began his career as an apprentice at Goodtime Charlie’s Tattooland, in East Los Angeles.^[1] Under the watch of Charlie Cartwright, a friend he met while visiting the old Long Beach Pike, Rudy and Cartwright began to hone their craft of single-needle, black-and-gray style tattoos.^[2] Rudy is known for his use of light and dark shades of black and grey. In addition to creating a softer and more realistic style of tattooing, with the advent of the new single needle tattoo technology, artists were now able to use a much greater level of detail than previously attainable utilizing older and more readily accepted tattoo machine and needle configurations.^[1] As the client base of East Los Angeles began requesting this 'penitentiary-style', the pair decided to create a single-needle configured tattoo machine.^[3]

Rudy is currently the president of the Beatnik's Car Club - a car club which requires the members to own 50s-styled hot rods and 'lots of tattoos'.^[4] He is the owner of Tattooland, an 'old school' street shop, located in Anaheim, California.^[5]