In fact, Los Angeles has been home to few more masterful artists of the human body. Image boards, in a sense, these reference pages feature the images that would eventually inspire Tom drawings, just jumbled into a more surreal anatomical combination than even his most populated artworks. Some of the collages are visible at the the Tom of Finland-Bob Mizer exhibition currently at MOCA's Pacific Design Center. What perhaps makes the foundation's collection so outstanding, however, is its inclusion of artwork that even Tom of Finland diehards likely haven't seen before - collage and photography. Of course, the foundation focuses on promoting Tom of Finland art, and Dehner proudly recalled how in 1998 LACMA acquired a work of Tom's that ended up being displayed between a Hockney and a Matisse. The collection includes all manner of subject matter - not just the homomasculine but also any art that by virtue of its erotic nature might encounter resistance from mainstream artistic society.
As a result his time here, Los Angeles benefits from the foundation's archives, which include not only the largest collection of Tom's work, but also the largest archive of erotic art in the world, at well over 100,000 items. Physique Pictorial Volume 10 Number 4, April 1961, Courtesy Bob Mizer Foundation, IncĬonsidering how international this new archetype for gay male masculinity had become, it's remarkable to think of Tom fine-tuning it in Echo Park, where he'd escape the cold Finnish winter months until his death in 1991. No longer confined to the subterranean meat mazes of popular porn scenarios, his finely crafted icons are now out there for all to enjoy. The liberating effect of Tom's men smiling lustfully in the bright light of day cannot be underestimated. Tom Cruise's Maverick character played out a heterosexual love story that could not disguise the homoerotic setting. The '80s blockbuster "Top Gun" drew heavily on the visual theme of uniformed male partners. In that same Taschen book, Frankie Goes to Hollywood singer Holly Johnson, who once commissioned Tom of Finland-inspired costumes for the band's touring show, cites the more military-inspired aspects of the Tom of Finland look as having helped inspire the most subversively homoerotic movies in history. Untitled, 1968, Courtesy Tom of Finland Foundation.īy the time the Tom of Finland Foundation was established in Echo Park in 1984, the SoCal gym boom had made those primo physiques ever-so-slightly more attainable, and Freddy Mercury and Rob Halford had rocked decidedly Tom of Finland-esque aesthetics onstage. "He gave the young, developing homosexual imagery that they could actually attach themselves to and feel good about." "When I was growing up, there was nothing positive about being a homosexual," he said. He invented a look, and you better respect it."ĭurk Dehner, the president and co-founder of the Tom of Finland Foundation, agreed.
"His drawings are beautiful, confident, sexy, totally original and butch-elegant. In his essay for the Taschen collection Tom of Finland XXL, John Waters calls Tom the grand-daddy of this cultural image of the big, swaggering gay man. But more than just titillate readers, Tom of Finland sought to create a happy, masculine identity for the gay men who had otherwise only seen themselves portrayed in culture as comical sissies or psychological defects. A Bob Mizer-produced magazine, Physique Pictorial boasted muscle-bound men in "health and fitness" spreads that circumvented laws prohibiting gay pornography in the United States. starting in 1957, with the publication of his first illustration in Physique Pictorial, a jolly lumberjack, shirtless and balancing on a log floating down a river. His masterful drawings of the male form didn't just echo an emerging segment of gay male culture they helped shape it.īorn Touko Laaksonen in Finland in 1920, Tom earned fans in the U.S. That's not an inaccurate image, but it doesn't come close to explaining the importance of Touko Laaksonen's art. To those familiar with Tom of Finland, the very mention of his name brings to mind a display of prime beef that would put a butcher shop to shame. Physique Pictorial Volume 11 Number 4, May 1962, Courtesy Bob Mizer Foundation, Inc.