Tom of Finland Foundation Announces
Winner Of 10th Emerging Artist Competition

FELIPE MERES (USA)
TOM OF FINLAND GRAND PRIZE WINNER
and 1st Place Winner JOHN PALATINUS SINGLE FIGURE AWARD
Genesis 2 male, measuring gaze, pure anality, 2014
Digital collage, inkjet print on luster paper, 50" x 40"

The Tom of Finland Emerging Artist Competition, originally founded in 1993, is based on the "principals and ethical codes of its cofounder Touko Laaksonen, a.k.a. Tom of Finland," who became an icon in the Gay world for his beautiful and erotic artwork. The Emerging Artist Competition provides up and coming Queer artists a platform to showcase their work and then have it judged by some of the most prominent and highly-respected individuals in the field.

"Artists create what they see. It is without trepidation of what of their works are seen," S. R. Sharp, Curator at Tom of Finland Foundation, said, "Sexuality is a nourishing element in a whole being. The artist Tom of Finland embodies an era of freedom. This competition gives a remarkable opportunity for the new artist to show their complete self and be recognized by others."

See more on Huffpost Gay Voices

View ALL of the winners and entries here.

Three Decades Of Dedication To
Protecting, Preserving And Promoting Art

The Foundation turns 30 years old on December 14, 2014!

The nonprofit Tom of Finland Foundation (ToFF) was established by the artist Tom of Finland (Touko Laaksonen, 1920 - 1991) and Durk Dehner. As Tom had established worldwide recognition as the master of homoerotic art, the Foundation's original purpose was to preserve his vast catalog of work. Several years later the scope was widened to offer a safe haven for all art that portrayed sexual behavior or generated a sexual response.

Today ToFF continues in its efforts of educating the public as to the cultural merits of erotic art and in promoting healthier, more tolerant attitudes about sexuality.

Architect Peter Marino Selects Rarely Seen Images From
Tom of Finland's Own Archive for Document

From Tom of Finland's private reference binders of photo-collages.

Robert Mapplethorpe's 1979 portrait of Bryan Ridley and Lyle Heeter provides an fitting surrogate for the seemingly contradictory aesthetics of New York architect Peter Marino. In one of the photographer's most well-known images, a couple's black leather clothing (and chains) is juxtaposed with their high-end domestic interior, replete with a wingback chair, oriental rug, and white antler end table. Marino, who is a collector of Mapplethorpe's work, is not only the leading architect for fashion brands and upscale residences but also renowned for his head-to-toe leather biker gear.

Mapplethorpe's photographs and Marino's attire are similarly indebted to motorcycle culture and the drawings of Tom of Finland, which both reflected a growing discontent with mainstream American culture after WWII. Born Touko Laaksonen, Tom of Finland began producing drawings of idealized and hypersexualized men for beefcake magazines such as Physique Pictorial. The artist was particularly attracted to the stylized masculinity of leather-clad bikers, popularized by the actor Marlon Brando in the 1953 film The Wild One.

— Drew Sawyer for Document Journal

More on TOM's Blog

City Of Kaarina Awarded Tom Of Finland Foundation Their
Medal of Honor

Touko was born in Kaarina, at the southwestern tip of the country, near Turku, the ancient capital of Finland. The modern seaport of Turku has grown so much since his birth that Kaarina is now a dynamic, thriving town of its own, but back in the '20s the area where he grew up was more country than town, a checkerboard of fields and forest.

More on TOM's Blog

Tom Of Finland Honored At
Eurobest

Eurobest, Europe´s premier Festival of Creativity, was held in Helsinki this year, 1-3 Dec. It was attended by creative talent and clients from all over Europe.The festival awards and celebrates creative, globe-trotting ideas. And this is really the meeting point for Tom and McCann — we both were born to do global ideas and phenomena. McCann is an international advertising agency where Tom was an advertising artist and art director.

As a part of the festival programme, Durk Dehner and S. R. Sharp from Foundation as well as Petteri Lillberg, CEO of McCann Helsinki gave a presentation Erotica Before Internet: Muscles And Counter-Culture — on how Touko Laaksonen turned Tom of Finland into a global phenomena before the internet. At the same time, he changed the world and gave gay men a new confident identity. What are the lessions from this to todays world changers and to ideas that travel across markets and cultures?

Visit TOM's Blog for some images from the event.
Don't miss the video on Vimeo, showing Tom back when he worked for McCann.

Tom Of Finland Exhibition Opening Video
Muu Galleria (Helsinki) 28 8 2014

Well over 5,000 vistors saw this exhibition.

At 33 Orchard
Let's Go Let Go: In Memoriam Hudson

ISABELLA KIRKLAND,
We Were So Lucky, 2014,
Acrylic, four-leafed clovers, oil paint on rag board, 15½" x 24".
COURTESY 33 ORCHARD, NEW YORK

LET'S GO LET GO, an inspiring tribute to the late Hudson, who died suddenly on February 10, included approximately 70 works by artists who showed at his gallery, Feature, Inc.

Feature opened in Chicago in 1984 with a show of appropriated photographs by Richard Prince. The gallery moved to New York in 1988, at which point the program evolved toward quirky abstractions and sexually provocative photography by Richard Kern, homoerotic drawings by Tom of Finland, and creepy surrealist oils by Alexander Ross.

— Elisabeth Kley for ArtNews

More on ArtNews

6th December
Finland Independence Day

From the late 12th century until 1809, Finland was part of Sweden, a legacy reflected in the prevalence of the Swedish language and its official status. It then became the Grand Duchy of Finland, an autonomous duchy within the Russian Empire, until the Russian Revolution which prompted the Finnish Declaration of Independence in 1917.

This was followed by the Finnish Civil War in which the pro-Bolshevik Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic was defeated by the pro-conservative "Whites" with support from the German Empire. After a brief attempt to establish a Kingdom of Finland, the country became a republic.

— Pete Karjalainen

More on TOM's Blog

Fancy Sleeping With
Tom Of Finland

Finlayson has produced a range of Tom of Finland home products
Photo via: Tumblr

Berndt Arell, director general of the National Museum of Sweden and co-author of the book Tom of Finland: Unforeseen, said: "I am confident that Touko Laaksonen would be proud of the respect that he as an artist has gained during recent years thanks to Tom of Finland Foundation and Finnish trendsetter companies such as Itella Posti Oy, the Finnish national post office, and now Finlayson."

He also added: "[For Tom of Finland] becoming a world-known artist has required determination and courageous work in a world that was not that respectful and permissive at the time."

See the complete article by Henri Neuendorf on artnet news

Visit the Tom of Finland page on the Finlayson Website

More on the launch here and here and here on TOM's Blog

From Kalup
Limited edition Tom of Finland Jacket

"Kalup Machines is extremely happy to offer you a design by an artist we highly respect. Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, was an artist that created a unique and new fetish world.

"In cooperation with Tom of Finland Foundation we are able to put his art where it belongs — on a leather jacket."

Learn more about this limited edition jacket on the Kalup Website.

Mark Grotjahn's
Favorite Taschen book is…

"Holy shit! Such a good fucking drawer. Full on, over-the-top celebration of male sexuality. I got the book and five years later I bought a drawing."

— Mark Grotjahn, American painter
Quoted in TASCHEN Magazine, Winter 2014

Get your copy of Tom of Finland XXL

For That Last Minute
Stocking Stuffer…

Itella Posti Artwork: TOM OF FINLAND © 1979, 1978 Tom of Finland Foundation

…Consider going First-Class! The Foundation is the exclusive USA distributor for this limited quantity of Itella Posti official Finnish postage stamps and gift sets. We have them in stock and can get them to you in time for Santa's big day. Classy and affordable, they are also a part of history: the first postage stamps bearing the artwork of Tom of Finland.

Get them here!

Love Isn't A Crime.
Hate Is.

TOM OF FINLAND (Touko Laaksonen, Finnish, 1920 — 1991),
Untitled (Detail), 1981, Graphite on paper, © 1981 Tom of Finland Foundation

For A Look At The Entire Year, Visit The
F O U N D A T I O N     C A L E N D A R

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