Tom of Finland exhibit celebrates Nordic country’s Gay icon

PHOTO CREDIT: VESA MOILANEN/LEHTIKUVA via AP

HELSINKI (AP) — A new exhibition showing the works of Tom of Finland adds a personal touch to the late Finnish artist whose homoerotic drawings of muscular men gained a following in the Gay community from the 1950s.

TOM OF FINLAND Bold Journey, which opens Friday at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki, features Tom’s drawings, archive material, personal clothing items as well as memorabilia, letters, publications, magazines and films.

Tom’s cheerful, sexually explicit works made an impact in the art world at a time when homosexuality was illegal or classified as a disease in countries around the world, including his native Finland. The Nordic country has since embraced the artist, who died in 1991, as a national icon.

“Tom is one of our national heroes who deserves to be seen as one of the most well-known Finnish artists of the 20th century,” said Kiasma museum director Leevi Haapala.

He said Tom of Finland had emerged as one of the country’s best known pop culture brands, along with the Moomins, the comic strip characters created by Finnish writer and illustrator Tove Jansson.

“There are sort of two different men; Touko had his own biography and Tom had his own biography, and they sort of paralleled,” said Durk Dehner, the president and cofounder of Tom of Finland Foundation.

READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE BY JARI TANNER

Published: 27th April 2023

Categorised in: Events