Tom of Finland 2018
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Beschreibung
Tom of Finland, the ideal man times twelve! Not only since the state of Finland decided to print his iconic art pieces as postage stamps, Tom of Finland (born Touko Laaksonen) has a huge international following. The artist created fantasies that photography cannot reproduce. What distinguishes Tom of Finland is that he created erotic works with an absolute masterstroke of his pencil. The well-rounded Tom's man in this twelve-page wall calendar comes as he is - be it sailor, biker, cop, leatherman, or sportsman. A must-have for all fans of Tom of Finland!
"The mention of 'Tom of Finland' produces smile, ears at attention. He is the man we all wish we could be", says Durk Dehner, best friend of Tom and co-founder and president of the Tom of Finland Foundation. Tom of Finlands's universe unfolds on twelve large pages in this 2018 wall calendar. And they are all here: sailor, biker, cop, sportsman, leatherman - the original "Tom's Man" in all shapes and attires. His masterful craftsmanship distinguishes Tom of Finland from other artist of his genre: "Tom of Finland shares a skill set with great masters like Michelangelo and Paul Cadmus", as designer Todd Oldham puts it. Tom's work lately gains more and more recognition from mainstream culture, subsequently earning him a set of postage stamps issued by the state of Finland. This wall calendar is a must-have for all Tom of Finland fans!
Autor*in
Tom of Finland
"Tom of Finland's real name is Touko - because he was born on 8 May 1920, on the south coast of Finland, and May in Finnish is ""Toukokuu"". His homeland had been independent for just three years when Touko was born, and outside its few cities the country was still rough and wild. The men who worked in the fields and woods, the farmers and loggers, were true frontiersmen, every bit as rough and wild as the countryside.
Touko grew up among those men but was not a part of their world. Both his parents were schoolteachers, and they raised Touko indoors in an atmosphere of art, literature and music. Obviously talented, by the time he was five he was playing the piano and drawing comic strips. He loved art, literature and music.
But he loved those outdoorsmen even more. At that same age of five, Touko began to spy on a neighbour, a muscular, stomping farmboy whose name, ""Urho"", means ""hero"". Urho was the first in a long line of heroes to hold Tom's attention while he memorized every flex of their lean muscles, every humorous twist of their full lips.
In 1939, Touko went to art school in Helsinki to study advertising. His fascination expanded to include the sexy city types he found in that cosmopolitan port - construction workers, sailors, policemen - but he never dared proposition them. It was not until Stalin invaded Finland and Tom was drafted into a lieutenant's uniform that he found nirvana in the blackouts of World War II. At last, in the streets of the pitch-black city, he began to have the sex he had dreamed of with the uniformed men he lusted after, especially once the German soldiers had arrived in their irresistible jackboots. After the war, Touko went back to studying art and also took piano classes at the famed Sibelius Institute. Peace put an end to blackout sex and uniforms became rare again, so Touko returned to his teenage practice of locking himself in his room, stripping naked, and stroking himself with one hand while the other hand created on paper what he could seldom find on the streets.
By day, he did freelance artwork - advertising, window displays, fashion design. In the evenings, he played the piano at parties and cafes, becoming a popular member of Helsinki's post-war bohemian set. He avoided the fledgling gay scene, because what were then called ""artistic"" bars were dominated by the flamboyant effeminacy typical of the time. He traveled frequently, becoming very familiar with the gay cruising areas found in every major city. Still, in 1953, when he met Veli, the man with whom he would live for the next 28 years, it was on a street corner a few blocks from home.
At the end of 1956, at the urging of a friend, Touko sent his secret artwork to a popular American muscle magazine, but, being cautious in those paranoid times, and anyway thinking that ""Touko Laaksonen"" was too tough a name for American tongues, he signed them,""Tom"". The editor loved them. The cover of the Spring 1957 issue of ""Physique Pictorial"" features a laughing lumberjack, drawn by ""Tom of Finland"". It was a sensation. Touko became Tom of Finland. The rest is history.
The demand for what Tom always called his ""dirty drawings"" grew quickly, but neither erotic art nor homosexual art paid very well in the Fifties. He soon stopped playing the piano in order to devote the time to his drawing, but it would be 1973 before Tom of Finland was making enough money for Touko Laaksonen to be able to quit his daytime job in advertising. Once he could devote his efforts full-time to his erotic drawing, Tom combined photorealistic attention to detail with his wildest sexual fantasies to produce a body of work that, for sheer homoerotism, will probably never be surpassed.
1973 was also the year of Tom's first art exhibition, in Hamburg, Germany, but that experience was so negative (all but one of the drawings were stolen) that it would be 1978 before he would agree to another exhibit, in Los Angeles, for which he made his first trip to America. Over the next couple of years, a series of exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Fr
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