The man behind Tom of Finland

A conversation with Durk Dehner

TOM OF FINLAND Aarno, 1976

What can we truly know of any artist/muse relationship? Of unspoken connections, the creator, the reason for creation. For Tom of Finland, there was Durk Dehner. Muse turned lover, turned into the keeper of the worlds he created. Durk Dehner is the cofounder of Tom of Finland Company and president & cofounder of Tom of Finland Foundation, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

FIRE ISLAND TEA: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

DURK DEHNER: I’m from Alberta, Canada, Rocky Mountains. My father and his family were farmers. Then came into the town and created employment for themselves. My mother was a doctor’s daughter. She came from an upper class status. When the two of them met, her parents were really upset that she was marrying down. They stayed together all their lives and had
three kids: me, my older sister, and I had a brother. Then I left Canada. Why? Because growing up where I did, it was like growing up in bum fuck Texas. Very much cowboy and rodeo, and I knew that there was a calling for me. I woke up very early in life.

FIRE ISLAND TEA: How did you first meet or hear about Tom of Finland?

DURK DEHNER: Well, I didn’t grow up with [his drawings] in Canada. I didn’t have access to AMG (Athletic Model Guild), Physique Pictorial, because so many young kids here in the United States found them on drugstore newsstands. There are so many stories of people hiding them and feeling that they couldn’t actually buy it because it would show that they were Gay. But they were being sold as physique magazines. When I was 26, I found my way to New York City, and I entered a contest at the Eagle’s Nest, which was the Eagle bar of that era. A really good friend of mine—he was a super-bottom—he was a composer of classical music, and the New York Philharmonic played his music, and his name was Louis Weingarten. He encouraged me to enter this contest, and he popped a Quaalude in my mouth. It’s not the first time I had a Quaalude, but that certainly broke the ice. I made that bar my home that night and took full opportunity to get guys to, you know, do what I told them to do. And so I won the contest. I got a photoshoot out of it, but how I discovered Tom was another story. I was in The Spike Bar walking down this ramp, and I saw this small poster, maybe 11″ x 14″, of a Tom of Finland jailer bare-chested with some keys and a mirror cap on his head. It wasn’t the subject matter but something else in that drawing that just pulled me right into it. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I had to have it. The poster was for a motorcycle run, with tear-off phone numbers at the bottom. Then you’d call that number, and they’d tell you where to meet. So it was rather secretive still, and the phone numbers were all torn off. So I felt, what’s the harm? I took it and rolled it up, put it up my sleeve. The next day I had a photo shoot with Target Studios, and there was an artist there. His birth name was Dominic or Judas. He was from Chicago, and his artist name was Etienne. I met him and I said, “Would you know who this artist is?” And I rolled it out and he said, “Of course, that’s Tom of Finland. He’s very, very famous. Do you like it?” And I said yes. But the thing about it is that I had an experience that I’d never experienced before with art or anything, so it was peculiar to me. And he says, “Well, I have his address if you want to write to him.” And I thought, well, why not? I wrote him a letter and told him about this strange experience that I had, and that I was glad to make his acquaintance. He wrote me back, and we stayed in touch for the next year. I left New York and went to the west coast. He wrote to me and said that he had scheduled two exhibitions on the west coast, one in San Francisco and then another in LA at two different galleries. This was going to be his first trip to America. I said, “Please let me host you,” and he accepted my offer. I got to witness the kind of admiration and appreciation of guys around 21 and 22 years of age who had found his work at 12 and 13 years of age. It had inspired them to go to the gym, to work out, to actually not be shamed, to be proud. They wanted to shake his hand and thank him. I hadn’t realized how big an impact he had on our Queer, Gay culture. 

ORDER ISSUE #2 TO SEE THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW

Published: 16th December 2024

Categorised in: News