The 1999 Tom of Finland Foundation Emerging Erotic Artist Contest ended on the last day of June with the largest number of participants since the contest began in 1993. Approximately 120 works were submitted which will be judged in 4 categories — photography, single figure, group, and fantasy/fetish.

International Panel of Judges

The panel consists of five judges each with their respective areas of expertise: Darrel Leibert and Daniel Voran are judging together as the publishers of Handjobs magazine, Seattle's wildly popular erotic publication; Susanna Luoto, is a Finnish public relations agent specializing in erotic art events; Matthew Pawlowski is proprietor of San Francisco's ESP art gallery (see his article on page 2); Bill Paul is professor of art at the University of Georgia; and Kelly McCray is proprietor of the Edward Day Gallery in Toronto. We are proud to have such an excellent mix of geographic and vocational variety to be the arbiters of this year's contest. The judges will have until September 15 to peruse their binders containing an 8 1/2” by 11” image of every entry, and then to return their judgments, expressed in the 1.0 to 10.0 scale used by the judges for Olympic events. Once all five sets of judgments are received, each entry will have its scores averaged and the works which have the highest scores in each category are winners, and the work that has the highest score of all four categories is the Grand Prize Winner. The entries, two of them pictured here, are judged anonymously with the names remaining secret until the scores are tallied.

Winners On Exhibit During Erotic Art Weekend

In addition to their prizes, the 13 winning works will be displayed in the next Dispatch, on the Foundation's popular Website and the original artworks will be featured in the exhibit at the Tom of Finland Company Gallery in Los Angeles' Silverlake district beginning the Saturday of the Erotic Art Fair, October 16 at 7pm, at which time a special reception will be held for those artists able to attend.