Horiyoshi iii biography for kids

Japanese tattoo artist

Horiyoshi III (Japanese: 三代目彫よし, Hepburn: Sandaime Horiyoshi, born 1946 as Yoshihito Nakano (中野 義仁)) is a horishi (tattoo artist), specializing in Japanese traditional full-body tattoos, or "suits," called Irezumi or Horimono.

Biography

Nakano was inspired when he saw a Yakuza (Japanese gangster) with a full-body tattoo in a public bathhouse when he was a young boy, "about eleven or twelve."^[3] This inspired him to visit legendary tattoo artist Yoshitsugu Muramatsu, also known as Shodai Horiyoshi of Yokohama.^[4] Nakano got his own tattoo from Horiyoshi II^[3]—Shodai Horiyoshi's son—and lead to Nakano becoming Horiyoshi I's apprentice at age 25.^[5]

Horiyoshi III is the second tattooist to be granted the honorific title, which passes from master to apprentice.

Muramatsu bestowed this title upon Nakano in 1971.^[6] The tattooist affixation Hori means to engrave or "to carve."