Tom of Finland: The Complete Kake Comics

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Hooven III, Valentine, Tom of Finland: The Official Life and Work of a Gay Hero. New York: Abrams, 2020, p.224. Tom of Finland: The Art of Pleasure. Mischa Ramakers, ed. London: Taschen, 1998, ISBN 3-8228-8598-3 Tom of Finland (Touko Laaksonen, 1920–1991) is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century’s most influential artists for his groundbreaking representation of the male figure. In his youth, Tom trained at an advertising school, but what he would come to call his “dirty drawings,” which he first began developing as a teenager, were the true focus of his attention, both during this formative period and throughout the entirety of his life. These masterful renderings of virile men engrossed in acts of homoerotic desire can be approached along several interpretative lines—art historical, social, technical—but each of them points to the revolutionary nature of his project. A master draftsman, whose passion for both his medium and his subject matter enabled him to become a powerful cultural force, Tom gave form to an imaginative universe that in turn helped fuel real-world liberation movements and enabled gay men to access their strength in new ways. Tom's drawings reaffirm the centrality of sexuality, joy, and the body in all areas of human endeavor.

Tom of Finland - 100 Years - Viewing Room - David Kordansky Tom of Finland - 100 Years - Viewing Room - David Kordansky

When I was the artist in residence there, it says Tom of Finland, so you would expect a bunch of German dudes in leather, but it was a pretty diverse group of people. The people who run that organization are very, very near and dear to me. I think they still have a very, very deep and intentional hand in L.A. queer radical art. The month I was there, I saw that house be a welcoming spot for so many different people — so many walks of queer life.David Kordansky Gallery is pleased to announce Tom of Finland: Pen and Ink 1965 – 1989, an exhibition of drawings in a range of media, including pencil, pen, ink, marker, and gouache. Together, these pictures demonstrate the breadth of graphic production key to Tom of Finland’s creative output throughout his lifetime. Curated in close collaboration with Tom of Finland Foundation, the exhibition opens on March 20 and will be on view through May 1, 2021.

Tom of Finland | Artnet | Page 2 Tom of Finland | Artnet | Page 2

S.R. Sharp, who is the vice-president and curator at the Tom of Finland Foundation, says artists like Kelley revered Tom because his art did nothing less than offer permission to explore sexuality and explicit imagery in their own work. “And they always have remembered that,” Sharp says. “And they’ve carried his legacy for many, many, many years.” My aim is not to create an ideal but to draw beautiful men who love each other and are proud of it” – Tom of Finland 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. Nudity started being an important subject in art in ancient Greece. The male body was celebrated at sports competitions or religious festivals, it... Exhibition continues until Saturday 19 October. Open 12 to 6 pm, Wednesday to Saturday, with extended hours of 10 am to 6 pm on 10-13 October for The Lakes International Comic Art Festival.

Prono, Luca: Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Popular Culture. p. 258. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008. ISBN 978-0-313-33599-0 Tom’s comics have long had a special place within the LGBTQ community and I believe, now more than ever, it is vital that his work is shown; as Julie Tait, Director of The Lakes International Comic Art Festival has it: this comic work offers an essential perspective on queer culture at a critical point in its history.

Tom of Finland: Drawing Beautiful Men Proud To Love Each Tom of Finland: Drawing Beautiful Men Proud To Love Each

In a certain way, there was always a position of separatism with the leather men compared to the leather dykes. Which is why I’m so interested in the influence that Tom of Finland had on [the Canadian artist and publisher] G. B. Jones. For the first time within G. B. Jones’s zines, in which she adopted the style of Tom of Finland, I was able to see my own community and my own self, versus the fantasies that many of us carried of being leather daddies. Hooven, F. Valentine III (2012). Tom of Finland: Life and Work of a Gay Hero. Berlin: Bruno Gmünder Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86787-166-2. a b c Ilppo Pohjola (author): Kari Paljakka and Alvaro Pardo (producers): Daddy and the Muscle Academy: Tom of Finland: United Kingdom: Oracle Home Entertainment: 2002.In 1991, Filmitakomo and Yleisradio produced a documentary film, Daddy and the Muscle Academy, [2] directed by Ilppo Pohjola. By the late 1980s, Laaksonen was well known in the gay world, but his "pneumatically muscled, meticulously rendered monster-donged icons of masculinity" received mainstream attention when the film – which includes hundreds of images of his work along with interviews – was released theatrically in Finland, won a Finnish Jussi Award in 1992, [40] and was shown at film festivals and film art houses worldwide. [25] [41] [42] While praising the artwork's quality one critic noted the film's lauding of Laaksonen as a gay pride icon while ignoring his work's "resemblance to both S & M pornography and Fascist art" which she tied to Laaksonen's early sexual experiences with German soldiers during World War II. [42] World's first homoerotic stamps produced in Finland" (audio interview). Today programme. BBC News Online. 17 April 2014 . Retrieved 17 April 2014.

Tom of Finland | Artnet Tom of Finland | Artnet

Tom of Finland (Touko Laaksonen, Finnish; b. May 8, 1920, d. November 7, 1991) has long been recognized as one of the twentieth century’s great visual innovators. A masterful draftsman, Tom produced an expressive body of work that depicts masculine, empowered gay men fully enjoying their sexuality, engulfed in intimate moments of unabashed joy and pleasure. This exhibition showcases the artist’s diverse material approaches to his meticulous figurations—including sharp pen and marker linework, ink washes, and delicate pencil shading—that exemplify the boldness of his vision and the virtuoso qualities of his hand. With their skillful observation of light and classical composition, and their images of muscular men engaged in complex motions, the drawings reveal formal concerns that call to mind the work of Caravaggio and Rembrandt. 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 Laaksonen's illustrations of leathermen, as exemplified by Kake, significantly influenced the aesthetics of the gay leather subculture. Kake is among Laaksonen's most popular creations, having been alternately described as his "most iconic character" and as "the gay world's most familiar pin-up icon". The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts, Claude J. Summers, Cleis Press, 2004. ISBN 1-57344-191-0 Arell & Mustola, p. 31. This followed the naming conventions of the magazine. Other pseudonyms of the time were Bruce of Los Angeles and Spartan of Hollywood, for example.Paasonen, Susanna (2019). "Tom of Finland comes home, keeps on coming". Porn Studies. 6 (4): 446. doi: 10.1080/23268743.2019.1580448. S2CID 192556492.