Valentine 1943-2025

Francis Valentine Hooven III
25th May 1943–7th November 2025

Valentine showing as an artist at the Tom of Finland Art & Culture Festival 2015

It’s never the news you want to hear but our friend has passed away. Valentine was an establishing leader, Director of Tom of Finland Foundation, the Editor of our newsletter, and in 2015 he received the Tom of Finland Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He was an artist and author and many of his initiatives are an integral part of what our Foundation is today.

25 May, 1943, 1400 hours — born at the height of WW II, Valentine was raised everywhere from Great Falls, Montana, to Berlin, Germany, attended the Philadelphia College of Art on scholarship for one and two-thirds years before having a nervous breakdown and going into the Merchant Marines as a deck hand on Mobil Oil supertankers. Back ashore, he became involved in live theater,  first as a stage hand, later holding just about every position a theater offered, beginning in Philly, then Frisco, then to Hollywood to become a stunt man before his creative illustrations finally began to sell to the Gay magazines, appearing in most of the popular publications of the 1980s and ’90s until focusing on Handjobs, which has published all of his erotic work since 1999.

Being a versatile and creative Gemini, Valentine always tended to work in a variety of mediums, the most notable of which is pyrography (wood burning), a medium popular only with two million Boy Scouts and the artist. Of late, he has taken up oil painting again for the first time since art school and Valentine says he is surprised to find himself experiencing a sudden rejuvenation in his art, especially in the large-scale canvases that inspire him more than anything else ever has. [2012]

VALENTINE Tom of Finland Foundation Permanent Collection

Valentine and Tom had great rapport, with him becoming Tom of Finland’s “official biographer”. He penned Tom of Finland: The Official Life and Work of a Gay Hero (1992 / 2020)

“TOM agreed to me doing the writing because, he said, ‘you write the way I draw, very masculine, but with a sense of humor!’ Throughout the course of the following year, he was involved in creating virtually every page of the book. To emphasize that fact, I often left parts of the tale in his own words, so the reader would be aware that it was not just a biography but almost an autobiography as well.” —F. Valentine Hooven, III

S.R. Sharp, ToFF; Rodolphe Lachat, publisher; Valentine Hooven, author; Durk Dehner, ToFF in coversation at Fotografiska, 2021

“The Advocate sent me as a writer and artist to interview Tom the first time he came to America at what became the Foundation (at that time it was Durk Dehner’s house)…After that interview, I began to volunteer at Foundation because I liked Tom so much and felt his work was important. Later I became Director for the last three years of Tom’s life.

“Valentine and I were good collaborators, we were independent types and gave each other space to thrive. His friendly, outgoing personality engaged me and was an asset for our Foundation. We laughed together and I was proud to have him working here.” —Durk Dehner

Last month, The Studio Door had the honor of presenting Valentine’s work publicly for the last time during his life. It was an opportunity for our community to celebrate this special man. Though he was very ill throughout the exhibition and unable to attend, he was aware and pleased by the recognition.

Following several hospitalizations and declining health, Valentine died in La Mesa, where he had relocated from Palm Springs a year prior to be closer to his niece for support. By a strange coincidence, his brother died the same day in Arizona.

His legacy will live on through his art, his words, and in the Queer artists he championed.

Rest well, dear friend—you will be profoundly missed and forever remembered.

Published: 8th November 2025

Categorised in: News