Tom of Finland XXL

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In 2011 there was a large retrospective exhibition of Laaksonen's artwork in Turku, Finland. The exhibition was one of the official events in Turku's European Capital of Culture programme. [37]

a b c Hooven, F. Valentine, III: Gay histories and cultures: an encyclopedia. Volume 2 of Encyclopedia of lesbian and gay histories and cultures. p. 884. George E. Haggerty, editor. Taylor & Francis, 2000. ISBN 0-8153-3354-4 Born Touko Laaksonen (1920-1991), Tom revolutionized not just the depiction of gay men with his highly stylized and hypersexualized imagery but also the way they were perceived in society and how they perceived themselves. As he created his work at a time when it was illegal to do so, much of Tom's earlier work could land both the artist and collector in jail on indecency and pornography charges. As a result, recognition of his artistry spread organically via word of mouth and outside the museums and galleries of the established art world. An Imaginary Sketchbook has almost no text, save for an afterward by the book’s co-editors, Juerg Judin and Pay Matthis Karstens of Berlin’s Galerie Judin. The cover of Tom of Finland: An Imaginary Sketchbook, left, and a preparatory drawing, 1988. Images provided by Tom of Finland Foundation, Inc.World's first homoerotic stamps produced in Finland" (audio interview). Today programme. BBC News Online. 17 April 2014 . Retrieved 17 April 2014. Löfström, Jan (1998), "Scandinavian homosexualities: essays on gay and lesbian studies", Journal of homosexuality, Routledge, vol.35, no.3–4, pp.189–206, ISBN 0-7890-0508-5

Laaksonen was born on 8 May 1920 and raised by a middle-class family in Kaarina, a town in southwestern Finland, near the city of Turku. [3] Both of his parents Suoma and Edwin Laaksonen were schoolteachers at the grammar school that served Kaarina. The family lived in the school building's attached living quarters. [4] Millstein, Seth (15 April 2014). "Finland's Homoerotic Postage Stamps Are Pretty Bold". Bustle . Retrieved 19 August 2015. Ilppo Pohjola (author): Kari Paljakka and Alvaro Pardo (producers): Daddy and the Muscle Academy: Tom of Finland. Filmitakomo & YLE, Finland 1991. (Duration of Feature: 58 Minutes. Also features frames of Laaksonen's graphic art.)a b Festival Diary: Bad karma and the Big Yin: The Billy Connolly Affair and trouble and strife with The Bay City Rollers. Sheila Johnston reports from the 46th Edinburgh International Film Festival Sheila Johnston, The Independent, 21 August 1992. Touko Valio Laaksonen (8 May 1920 – 7 November 1991), known by the pseudonym Tom of Finland, was a Finnish artist who made stylized highly masculinized homoerotic art, and influenced late 20th-century gay culture. He has been called the "most influential creator of gay pornographic images" by cultural historian Joseph W. Slade. [2] Over the course of four decades, he produced some 3,500 illustrations, mostly featuring men with exaggerated primary and secondary sex traits, wearing tight or partially removed clothing. In May, Diesel partnered with Tom of Finland on a Pride capsule collection and launched “All Together,” a pair of exhibitions in Venice and Paris displaying original works by Tom of Finland and artists inspired by him. We wanted to show a spectrum of what he drew and how he drew,” Karstens said. “Not just ones where every line is perfect. But drawings where you see the process and a bit of how ‘Tom’s man’ changed.” Tom of Finland sketches, left 1970, right 1973. Sketches provided by Tom of Finland Foundation, Inc.

In 1999, an exhibition took place at the Institut Culturel Finlandais ( Finnish Cultural Centre) in Paris. In 1998, TASCHEN introduced the world to the masterful art of Touko Laaksonen with The Art of Pleasure. Prior to that, Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, enjoyed an intense cult following in the international gay community but was largely unknown to a broader audience. There is considerable argument over whether his depiction of "supermen" (male characters with huge sexual organs and muscles) is facile and distasteful, or whether there is a deeper complexity in the work which plays with and subverts those stereotypes. For example, some critics have noted instances of apparent tenderness between traditionally tough, masculine characters, or playful smiles in sado-masochistic scenes. [ citation needed] Laaksonen was diagnosed with emphysema in 1988. Eventually the disease and medication caused his hands to tremble, leading him to switch media from pencil to pastel. He died in 1991 of an emphysema-induced stroke. [6] Private life [ edit ] Hooven, F. Valentine (1993). Tom of Finland: His Life and Times. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-09325-X.He went to school in Turku and in 1939, at the age of 19, he moved to Helsinki to study advertising. In his spare time he also started drawing erotic images for his own pleasure, [3] based on images of male laborers he had seen from an early age. At first he kept these drawings hidden, but then destroyed them "at least by the time I went to serve the army." [5] The country became embroiled in the Winter War with the Soviet Union, and then became formally involved in World War II, and he was conscripted in February 1940 into the Finnish Army. [3] He served as an anti-aircraft officer, holding the rank of second lieutenant. [6] He later attributed his fetishistic interest in uniformed men to encounters with men in army uniform, especially soldiers of the German Wehrmacht serving in Finland at that time. "In my drawings I have no political statements to make, no ideology. I am thinking only about the picture itself. The whole Nazi philosophy, the racism and all that, is hateful to me, but of course I drew them anyway—they had the sexiest uniforms!" [7] After the war, in 1945, he returned to studies. [3] Bob Mizer and Tom of Finland", Kate Wolf, Artforum International Magazine (Online), 21 November 2013 Playboy bunnies, pinup girls — they’ve been the norm for ages. It was time for it to happen to men,” he said. “There’s been a window opened to acceptance of male nudes, of homoerotic art. It’s a catching up — an emancipation of the male body.” You can see him trying a gesture, erasing it , and finding the right one,” Karstens said. “It’s very different from the finished works, which are so ‘finished.’” I discovered Tom of Finland, and his art, only recently and already there's a dearness in my heart for them. I'm a bisexual man who openly admits to being an unapologetic consumer of pornography, and Tom of Finland's work is an opportunity to see something really beautiful: pornography that fosters a positive and healthy approach to sex. The men in Tom's work are happy and, no matter what, always approaching sex as something that is enjoyable rather than manipulative.

In 2015, Artists Space presented the exhibition "Tom of Finland: The Pleasure of Play" in New York City, USA. [38] The exhibition was also presented in Kunsthalle Helsinki in 2016, complemented with additional material such as photos from family albums. [39] The foundation has partnered with various retailers, from Comme des Garçons to Happy Hour Skateboards. Flavor Paper even created x-rated wallpaper in collaboration with Michael Reynolds and Hoffman Creative. During his lifetime and beyond, Laaksonen's work has drawn both admiration and disdain from different quarters of the artistic community. Laaksonen developed a friendship with gay photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whose work depicting sado-masochism and fetish iconography was also subject to controversy. [ citation needed] Tom of Finland: The Art of Pleasure. Mischa Ramakers, ed. London: Taschen, 1998, ISBN 3-8228-8598-3World's first homoerotic stamps produced in Finland". BBC News. 17 April 2014 . Retrieved 19 August 2015. Waugh, Thomas: Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-231-09998-3. Karukoski's English-Language Debut Will Be Tom of Finland's First Authorized Biopic". Elsa Keslassy. Variety 13 September 2013 With the decriminalization of male nudity, gay pornography became more mainstream in gay cultures, and Laaksonen's work along with it. By 1973, he was publishing erotic comic books and making inroads to the mainstream art world with exhibitions. In 1973 he gave up his full-time job at the Helsinki office of advertising agency McCann. "Since then I've lived in jeans and lived on my drawings," is how he described the lifestyle transition which occurred during this period. In either case, there remains a large constituency who admire the work on a purely utilitarian basis; as described by Rob Meijer, owner of a leathershop and art gallery in Amsterdam, "These works are not conversation pieces, they're masturbation pieces." [ citation needed]