It’s our history | 1984 | The foundation of Foundation

Tom and Durk with archival boxes at TOM House

By 1984, Tom of Finland Company was doing so well Durk decided the time had come to focus on his other goal, the altruistic one. He wanted to start a nonprofit Tom of Finland organization, one which would be able to concentrate on preserving Tom’s art and enhancing the artist’s reputation.

The first goal of the newly formed Tom of Finland Foundation (ToFF) was to offer a safe haven for Tom’s original drawings, which were scattered all over the globe. At that time, he estimated he had created upwards of three thousand works. Averaged over a career span of (conservatively) forty-five years, this comes out to a little more than five drawings per month.

ToFF would now be a safe repository when and if an owner had no one else to rely on. Works by Tom, being just “dirty drawings,” had not always received the gentlest of care.  The Foundation’s three goals—preservation, restoration, and eventually exhibition—were going to require a lot of money.

-Valentine Hooven

Published: 1st January 2022

Categorised in: History