Did you know that there were many important women in Tom of Finland’s life? “Mommy is the boss”

The Laaksonen family around 1922 in the Ristimäki school building where they lived. On the left, Salme with Hely next to her, Pentti in the foreground, father Edvin on the sofa next to Touko. Kaija is in the arms of the Finnish mother. Courtesy of Tom of Finland Foundation

Touko Laaksonen grew up in raw cotton and love. But what is known about the women in his life? Read how beautifully he wrote to his sister Hely.

Who were the women in the life of the Finnish visual artist Tom of Finland?
In the context of the creator of works dripping with homoeroticism, this is rarely, if ever, a question asked.

Now it will be discussed by two people who know the artist well, Tuomas Parkkinen, the  director and screenwriter of the musical Tom of Finland, and Susanna Luoto, who has written a book about his life based on the artist’s correspondence.

Luoto’s book Sealed with a Secret–Letters by Tom of Finland (Like) was published in 2017. Luoto has also been involved in numerous other Tom of Finland projects since 1990.

Parkkinen’s musical Tom of Finland will premiere at the Hämeenlinna City Theatre in September 2026. It premiered in Turku in 2017.

The male characters of Tom of Finland, changed the image of Gay men into a masculine and self-confident one. TOM OF FINLAND © 1973 Tom of Finland Foundation

Then to those women, through childhood.
Touko Laaksonen (1920–1991) was born into a family of teachers in Kaarina, who were very interested in culture.

There were a total of five children: Salme and Pentti from their father’s first marriage, and Hely, Touko and Kaija from their new marriage. In addition to his work, his father Edvin Laaksonen led a choir called Kulkuset, for which his son Touko acted as an accompanist and one of the singers.

According to Tuomas Parkkinen, Touko’s mother Suoma, Mami, was her son’s greatest encourager and inspirer of creativity.

“Laaksonen has said that her mother was the boss. I think it’s somehow beautiful and touching that it was her mother who encouraged Touko to draw,” Parkkinen says.

Susanna Luoto also said that “his mother was important to him, “but a mama’s boy, Tom was not”.

The Laaksonen children in the yard of their home in Ristimäki. Hely (left), Salme, Touko and Pentti. Courtesy of Tom of Finland Foundation

A happy childhood is also evident in Touko’s later letters, which Luoto was able to access after getting to know the artist’s relatives. The moment was touching for Luoto. She is still moved as she reads a few letters aloud.

Touko’s letters to his sister Hely are particularly touching. The brother never revealed his sexual orientation to his sister. Despite the secret, the siblings were very close. It was to Hely that Touko expressed himself most openly, almost in a diary-like manner.

Hely was also one of the women in Touko’s life. He called his sister by her nickname Heikkä.

“The master of Gay eroticism and the stay-at-home mother of a family with five children hardly shared anything very similar in their everyday lives, but they still managed to get into warm contact with each other,” Luoto says.

Touko was more of a pianist than a visual artist. The pen and paper were reserved for his sister Kaija, who was studying at the Ateneum. Touko studied at the School of Sales and Advertising and then at the Sibelius Academy.

Touko and Kaija lived together in Helsinki for a long time, and Kaija believed that her brother would support himself, first as a tavern pianist and then as an advertising artist. Little did she know that Tom spent all his free time drawing erotic male characters and selling his drawings all over the world.

Making art has required a huge amount of time and effort from Tom of Finland.

The double life was twisted by Veli “Nipa” Mäkinen, who moved into the same apartment as his siblings as a “roommate” and became Touko’s long-time lover. Secret, of course.

In the musical Tom of Finland, Kaija’s sister finally reveals that her brother has always been a world-famous artist and Homosexual. In reality, the truth was revealed to the family only after Tom died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 1991.

Susanna Luoto thinks that Kaija and many other relatives suspected Tom’s secret, but the matter was kept quiet between the siblings.

Homosexuality may not have shocked those close to him as much as the pictures that had come out of their brother’s pen. The most shocked was reportedly the eldest of the children, sister Salme.

Kaija was reportedly irritated by her brother’s edginess. According to Parkkinen, Kaija was a tough person, if not a nasty person. “He was the opposite of her brother, who was a real gentleman, educated and positive about life.”

“It seems that Tom admired energetic and independent women,” Luoto says.

There is not much information about female friends, but when Touko Laaksonen worked as an advertising illustrator for a while, he had a lot of women as colleagues. Parkkinen remembers seeing a photograph in which Touko was grinning in the middle of a crowd of women worshipping him.

To Hely on 27th December 1981 (four months after the death of his long-term partner Nipa.)

“… I am grateful to fate that I once became friends with Nipa. I think it’s quite rare for a friendship to last that long, and not just to continue, but to grow and enrich over the years. It’s seemingly quite paradoxical, but probably basically quite logical that Nipa, despite his meager school education and quite early as a young boy being separated from home, was still able to teach me the wisdom of life and its true value much more than I certainly had to give him.

I often thought I knew and understood things better, and yet it was almost always the opposite. He wasn’t perfect, but the fact that one learned to understand and accept each other’s faults and shortcomings over the years was great. It deepened the affection. I would have fervently hoped that this friendship would continue for a long time, but fate decreed otherwise.

Nipa himself would have liked to continue his life, he was full of enthusiasm for work, but he was also ready to accept the other option, and in that he gave me a lesson once again – to accept life, its changes and its end as it is and when it happens.”

Tom’s letters show that he was a perceptive, intelligent and philosophical man. He had a gift for empathy, and he was passionate about both visual arts and music,” says Susanna Luoto. She hopes that people would know more about Tom of Finland than just his erotic Gay characters.

According to Luoto, many people may think that an artist who draws “such daring pictures” cannot be a civilized or educated person. It can also be difficult for the Heterosexual audience to remember what kind of time Tom lived in and understand why he had to hide his orientation.

Luoto and director Vesa Kuosmanen are currently working on a script for a documentary: Tom of Finland—Portrait of an Artist.

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE BY KATARIINA HAKANIEMI

Published: 28th October 2025

Categorised in: News