Tuoko Laaksonen, also known as Tom of Finland (1920-1991), was an iconic and provocative artist who rose to cult status in the international gay community and beyond for his work celebrating gay archetypes and masculinity during a time when being gay was taboo. Created in partnership with the Tom of Finland Estate, Tom of Finland: The Official Life and Work of a Gay Hero is a beautifully detailed visual biography full of never or rarely seen documents from his archive. The text was completed just a few months before the death of the artist and was fully approved by him--making this book the only 100% approved biography of this gay legend responsible for creating the muscled, mustachioed gay archetype of the 1960s and '70s. With an extensive biography, and suggestive photos and illustrations, Tom of Finland: The Official Life and Work of a Gay Hero brings to life the icon whose erotic illustrations of men influenced many artists, including Robert Mapplethorpe and Bruce Weber.

A spectacular book showing life and work of the Finnish icon from an unknown perspective with around 150 illustrations and well researched texts.Tom of Finland has became the most famous and influential Finnish artist of the 20th century. Born Touko Laaksonen in 1920, his iconic depiction of self-confident and life-affirming gayness gave decisive impulses to the international gay movements from the 1960s onwards. But although we clearly associate his portrayals of sensual and powerful cowboys, farm hands, soldiers and leathermen with the USA, Tom of Finland's rise to gay icon received the game-changing impetus neither in his native Finland nor in the USA. It was, of all places, the city of Hamburg and Tom's friendship with key exponents of the local gay scene in the early 1970s that helped him to his first exhibition ever.He even created a grand mural for the legendary "Tom's Bar", until today the only one legitimately named after him. Regular commissions to design posters and ads for gay events in Hamburg allowed him to launch his artistic career after quitting his day job as advertising executive, and led to the creation of the most extensive private collection of his drawings to date. Galerie Judin is now devoting an exhibition and a comprehensive publication to these seminal, but thus far little researched years, the art they generated and the friendships they formed. The book includes texts by Juerg Judin, Pay Matthis Karstens, Kati Mustola and Alice Delage, conversations with Durk Dehner and Michael P. Hartleben - and a facsimile of the artist's German travel diary from 1955.

A Tom of Finland sketchbook, with preparatory drawings that reveal his painstaking craftsmanship Positioned at something of an angle to art history, Tom of Finland (1920-91) nonetheless counts among the popular artists of the latter 20th century. Through his iconic images, he almost singlehandedly changed the way gay men were perceived by society, and, more importantly, how gay men perceived themselves. The massive oeuvre that he produced over the course of a career spanning nearly six decades is devoted almost entirely to this one topic: men, their bodies and their eroticism. This extraordinary consistency in subject matter was matched by a lifelong passion for the discipline of drawing. And Tom most likely drew every day of his life. Tom's world was populated by cowboys, mechanics, cops, punks and thugs--all indulging their desires with great camaraderie and without guilt or prejudice. This book assembles a cross section of these characters as devised by the artist in rough sketches or more carefully executed studies. These mostly served as preliminary drawings for the highly finished works, many of which were intended for publication. Designed as an imagined Tom of Finland sketchbook, this book lets the viewer share in his exuberant joie de vivre.

An immersive glimpse into the private, domestic world of one of the twentieth century’s most revolutionary artists. Nestled in a leafy, residential section of Los Angeles is the house where Tom of Finland (Touko Laaksonen, 1920–1991) lived and worked during the last decade of his life. It is an extraordinary place—part shrine, part haven, part art-historical archive, and part utopian collective. Still occupied by the men who resided there with Tom and dedicated themselves to preserving his legacy, the house serves as a living tribute to the artist’s astonishing oeuvre and his radical vision of unapologetic homoerotic sexuality. Offered to the reader as an intimate view of the man behind the hypermasculine imagery, the book moves from art-filled room to art-filled room, dining room to dungeon. Almost every surface of the house is covered in work made by Tom himself, or by those he influenced and inspired. For additional insight, Martyn Thompson’s revelatory photographs are paired with rarely seen preparatory sketches and unfinished drawings. Together, the compelling images place Tom’s work in an entirely new light, inviting readers to explore a hidden world of dreams and desire—the world of Tom of Finland.

Paperback edition of this groundbreaking study of the art of Touko Laaksonen (1920-1991), better known as Tom of Finland, in which Micha Ramakers explores the incredible and defining impact he has had upon gay culture. A lively and entertaining work encompassing the rise of the gay movement, the world of fine art and the functioning of pornography, this is an ideal work for the millions of Tom's fans throughout the world and of interest to readers unfamiliar with his work. Illustrated in b/w throughout.

All 26 episodes of the Kake comic serial have been collected in one volume--a reflection of a time when gay men were men, sex was carefree, and everyone wore a big, thick, mustache.

Scandinavian Homosexualities offers non-Scandinavian readers a rare opportunity to explore the history, sociology, notions, experiences, and cultural politics of homosexuality in Scandinavian societies in English. This unique insight into some of the most advanced countries in regard to institutionalized civil rights for lesbians and gays will help you direct change and progress in your own country. Chapters in Scandinavian Homosexualities draw from a range of theoretical and methodological strands to give you an overall picture of homosexuality in Scandinavian society. They cover a wide range of issues, including: traditions and practices in the legal regulation of same-sex sexuality the historically changing understanding of femininity and masculinity physical, social, and cultural niches of same-sex desire and sexual conduct theoretical approaches to individual experiences of sexual and erotic self In Scandinavian Homosexualities, you’ll come to see the cultural and social differences that exist between Scandinavian and Anglo-American societies. Specifically, you’ll see how differences in the culture of gender and sexuality may bear upon our scholarly theories and conceptualizations of homosexuality and on our analysis of sexual and gender politics. In many of the chapters there is, thus, an agenda to encourage comparisons among Western societies. The Scandinavian countries are among the most advanced in the world with regard to institutionalized civil rights of lesbians and gays. They are also, which is relevant for analyses of sexuality and homosexuality, societies where men and women are exceptionally equal in access to social, economic, and cultural resources. You can directly apply what you learn in Scandinavian Homosexualities of the cultural specificities of gender and sexuality in Scandinavian societies to your efforts to establish equality for same-sex relationships within your own culture.