If my dog didn’t like you, you couldn’t make her go anywhere. “I had not known her very long when I let her walk my dog, an American Bulldog called Jolene. He remembers a “highly bright, intelligent girl” who was generous to him and even self-effacing. She regarded herself as a Londoner through and through and she found that hard.” Hate agreed: “She didn’t like not being able to take the tube. Winehouse had trouble seeing herself as a famous commodity, rather than a normal north London girl. “It is fitting that the Jewish Museum in her beloved Camden Town should be the place to tell her story.” “Aside from being an immensely talented, iconic and inspirational singer, Amy was also a Jewish girl from north London,” said Abigail Morris, director of the Jewish Museum London. Winehouse’s Jewish paternal great-great-grandparents came to England as immigrants from Belarus in the early 1890s and the exhibition tells their story, as well as featuring photographs of her grandmother Cynthia. Hate’s work will now join the returning display of the singer’s music, designer clothes and personal belongings which has already toured Israel, Austria and America. The exhibition, Amy Winehouse: A Family Portrait, which is sponsored by her record label, Universal, was put together by her brother and sister-in-law in 2013. Inspiration for the design and the sketch for Amy’s Cynthia tattoo Photograph: Gift of Henry Hate Hate did not have the chance to carry out this wish. It was the name of her former husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, who is acknowledged as the inspiration for some of her most moving love songs. Winehouse later asked Hate to cover over the word Blake, which she had tattooed above a pocket design over her heart. He also designed the much-copied bird on her right arm, now used as the emblem of her foundation. “Of course, I don’t get any money from it, although it is always being reproduced everywhere.”ĭuring their friendship, Hate inked seven of the 14 tattoos that Winehouse sported, including the little ones on her fingers and knuckles and a large horseshoe shape on her left shoulder bearing the legend Daddy’s Girl. “I didn’t realise at the time it would be one of the most recognised tattoos on the planet,” he said. Hate tried to emulate the old-fashioned look of the images Winehouse had picked. It was only later on in our friendship she showed me a photo of Cynthia in her youth and I could see she had been a real head-turner.” She used phrases like ‘va va voom’ and images of Sophia Loren, along with other dark-haired, earthy pin-ups from that era to get across what her nan had been like. “She was looking for a cruder, traditional tattoo,” said Hate, “with not a lot of detail and none of the modern styling. The 20-year-old singer already had a few tattoos, including a Native American feather on her forearm, an image of cartoon character Betty Boop on her lower back and an Egyptian ankh symbol between her shoulder blades. I just called my partner and warned him I was going to be late,” said Hate. “She told me exactly what tattoo she wanted in honour of her nan. Winehouse wanted Hate to help her with a tribute to her father’s mother, Cynthia, once a singer. I have a bit of a temper and so I said ‘Have you lost your mind?’ She talked me down from the ledge by telling me not to worry and that it was her copy.”Īmy Winehouse and Henry Hate, circa 2004. “She was just ripping them out and I thought it was the copy my sister had got me. Sitting on a stool at his shop counter, Winehouse appeared to be tearing pages from one of Hate’s favourite books, the expensive Taschen publication 1,000 Pin-Up Girls. I remember thinking it was strange because I had just bought her CD Frank because I liked the track Stronger Than Me,” he said. She was about a foot shorter and 60 pounds lighter than I had thought: petite and quite shy too. “She came into my shop one Monday about 20 minutes before closing time,” he said. Two years later he began working with Winehouse on designs for the vintage-style tattoos the songwriter loved. In 2002 he set up his current tattoo parlour, Prick, in Shoreditch, east London, together with an art studio in Bermondsey. Hate, a Californian whose real name is Henry Martinez, came to Britain in 1998 and built up a clientele that included the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen. In collaboration with the charity Winehouse’s family set up in her name after her death in 2011 aged 27 from alcohol poisoning, Hate has allowed some of the tattoo sketches and designs he created with Winehouse to go on show for the first time at the Jewish Museum London, near the singer’s former Camden Town home in north London.
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