Tom of Finland: The Complete Kake Comics

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Laaksonen had a strained working relationship with DFT; he felt he was underpaid for Kake, and the company retained ownership of the original artwork for the series. An influential aesthetic force in late 20th-century gay culture, his illustrations were rendered in grayscale graphite and often featured uniformed men with exaggerated musculature and genitalia either performing or implying sexual activities. The printed medium provided a space for Tom to produce and disseminate his fantasies in the fullest possible capacity. Valentine Hooven III argues that "the leatherman as drawn by Tom of Finland" is "the gold standard, at least within the gay community. His art subverts stereotypes, but also laughs in the face of authority, with many of his figures in uniform.

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

He did not submit his comics for publication until the 1960s; his first published comic The Tattooed Sailor was published in the August 1961 issue of Physique Pictorial, a magazine that was the first outlet to publish his illustrations in 1957. 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 1999, an exhibition took place at the Institut Culturel Finlandais ( Finnish Cultural Centre) in Paris. Its association with danger and rebelliousness while at the same time using careful stylization provided the other extreme to the effeminate perception of gay men. This was in contrast to the then-prevailing stereotypes of gay man as an effeminate sissy, as seen in vaudeville and films going back to the first years of the industry. In 1979, Laaksonen, with businessman and friend Durk Dehner, co-founded the Tom of Finland Company to preserve the copyright on his art, which had been widely pirated. I also agree with Ellmann’s idea that the artist makes models of experience that people rush to try out.

Tom of Finland: Art of Strong Gay Masculinity - DailyArt Magazine Tom of Finland: Art of Strong Gay Masculinity - DailyArt Magazine

He hijacked the hypermasculine macho iconography that was so heterosexual in its nature and repurposed it for gay culture. Which is why I’m so interested in the influence that Tom of Finland had on [the Canadian artist and publisher] G. TOM House photography © Martyn Thompson, from Tom House: Tom of Finland in Los Angeles(published by Rizzoli, 2016). In gay magazines, Laaksonen's drawings were often cropped to be less explicit, as in this 1968 edition of Physique Pictorial. For a long time, there was no language around transness, or folks that were gender nonconforming or nonbinary.This early attraction was amplified during a stint in the Finnish military, in which Laaksonen saw action in Finland’s 1941 Continuation War against the U.

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

At first he kept these drawings hidden, but then destroyed them "at least by the time I went to serve the army. We kind of take Tom of Finland for granted, because, let’s be honest, as gay men, do we really need any more images of super muscular white dudes? Tom of Finland’s comics has faced challenges with censorship through the years, including prosecution for the creation of gay images. His work is in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among many other institutions. An ongoing Kake comic was originally commissioned by the Danish pornography publishing house DFT in the late 1960s.Laaksonen's life partner was the dancer Veli “Nipa” Mäkinen who shared his life for 28 years, until Mäkinen's death in 1981.

Kake (comics) - Wikipedia

Since then I've lived in jeans and lived on my drawings," is how he described the lifestyle transition which occurred during this period.Tom had the fortitude of spirit to celebrate men at play at a time when most of the world considered gay people to be an abomination. 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".