It’s our history | 2004 | Tom of Finland Foundation’s 20th anniversary

Durk and Tom, San Francisco Eagle, May 1985 by Robert Pruzan

1984-2004

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Tom of Finland Foundation’s (ToFF’s) formation as a nonprofit educational arts organization. In these 20 years we have accomplished many things including the large expansion of our library, archives, and permanent art collection, the establishment of many programs, and the introduction of new services for artists and the community.

First and foremost, I want to emphasize that all of this belongs to all of you. The fact that we are a nonprofit means that no one individual owns the assets of Foundation as they truly belong to society at large. Tom and I designed it this way so that the legacy would outlive both of us and people worldwide would be able to appreciate the bounty of the Foundation’s hard work for generations.

ToFF was started in 1984 with the mission of preserving the library and some of the original artwork created by Tom. The reason: he had altered culture. The messages in his work affected culture beginning with the Gay male sector, and then expanding to society as a whole either directly through his work being exposed to the masses, or indirectly by making an impact on the lives of other creative individuals who then went on to influence society through their own contributions.

In 1988 Tom and I decided to expand ToFF to be a center for all of the erotic arts which, of course, included both male and female artists. We realized that erotic artists were then disenfranchised and typecast with pornographers. We at Tom of Foundation are the protectors and nurturers of artists who express their creativity through depictions of the human form and man’s sexual desires.

In the past 20 years we have accumulated over 200,000 records and more than 100,000 visual files on artists. Our permanent collection contains over 1,000 Tom of Finland originals including finished pencil drawings, preliminary sketches and studies, pen & inks, watercolors and unique works such as lino cuts and pieces done in marker pens. There are also, now, over 1,500 pieces by other artists. To maintain an accurate record of tour collections we purchased a computer designed specifically for the digital scanning of artwork and to include a database we built for cataloging.

Our yearly art fairs now take place on both coasts of the United States; in New York each spring and in Los Angeles in the fall. Together the fairs provide 125 artists with the opportunity to showcase their works to the public.

2004 FOUNDATION EVENTS

Our website is constantly updated, and continues to be the foremost place on the net to discover new erotic artists, read about the history of erotic art, purchase works and be informed about erotic events all over the globe.

ToFF has expanded its ongoing programs here in Los Angeles to include life drawing classes, art salon evenings as well as fundraisers and other get-togethers.

We have loaned artwork to museums and galleries around the world for various shows including traveling exhibitions. Since its inception ToFF’s presence has been felt across the U.S. in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Miami Beach, New York, Palm Springs, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle, and overseas in Berlin, Canberra, Hamburg, Helsinki, London, Paris, Stockholm, Toronto and Zurich.

2004 exhibition

ToFF has accomplished all this on our own with the loyal support of our corps of members. We have never received grants from any funding agencies because they probably still think erotic art is too “fringe.” [On 22nd June 2004 Tom of Finland Foundation received its first grant from the Peter S. Reed Foundation.] We hope this attitude will change as society integrates a more comfortable level of acceptance of human sexuality into their lives.

We welcome your membership and contributions.

— Durk Dehner

Published: 12th March 2022

Categorised in: History