Homoerotic stamps celebrate artist Tom of Finland
The men depicted by Tom of Finland aren't just gay -- they're gay. That is, they're gay in the sense that they love men, but they're also gay in the sense that they're happy. And it was that combination, along with the fact that they're hyper-masculine, that made Tom of Finland so important....
The men depicted by Tom of Finland aren't just gay -- they're gay. That is, they're gay in the sense that they love men, but they're also gay in the sense that they're happy. And it was that combination, along with the fact that they're hyper-masculine, that made Tom of Finland so important.
His real name wasn't Tom, although he was of Finland. And when Touko Laaksonen's first drawings were published in the mid-Fifties, under that assumed name, they changed everything. For one thing, they were both cartoonish and photo-realistic. For another, they weren't just unapologetically sexual -- they were sometimes funny, and often outright joyous.
Photo: Tom of Finland/Itella
As his biographer once told an interviewer,"when he died I went through the drawings we have at the Tom of Finland Foundation trying to find a figure appropriate for a memorial service -- something sad or melancholy -- and I couldn't find one."
Now, the Finnish Postal Service is honouring the late Tom of Finland, who died in 1991, with a series of stamps. Two of them together make up one of his characteristic portraits of a sexy guy wearing a moustache and a cop uniform, with a sexy guy wearing a moustache and nothing else. And the third is a picture of a man's rear end that looks like a pair of ripe peaches attached to legs.
Photo: Tom of Finland/Itella
They may not be the kind of thing a toddler would use to send out invitations to his fourth birthday party. But they're a surprising and fitting tribute to a man whose work created a new kind of gay iconography.
They're also bound to be a huge success, so let's hope the Finnish Postal Service is -- like the subjects of Tom's art -- well-endowed.
Photo: Tom of Finland/Itella
Below is a documentary about Tom of Finland made by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
Photo: Tom of Finland/Itella
As his biographer once told an interviewer,"when he died I went through the drawings we have at the Tom of Finland Foundation trying to find a figure appropriate for a memorial service -- something sad or melancholy -- and I couldn't find one."
Now, the Finnish Postal Service is honouring the late Tom of Finland, who died in 1991, with a series of stamps. Two of them together make up one of his characteristic portraits of a sexy guy wearing a moustache and a cop uniform, with a sexy guy wearing a moustache and nothing else. And the third is a picture of a man's rear end that looks like a pair of ripe peaches attached to legs.
Photo: Tom of Finland/Itella
They may not be the kind of thing a toddler would use to send out invitations to his fourth birthday party. But they're a surprising and fitting tribute to a man whose work created a new kind of gay iconography.
They're also bound to be a huge success, so let's hope the Finnish Postal Service is -- like the subjects of Tom's art -- well-endowed.
Photo: Tom of Finland/Itella
Below is a documentary about Tom of Finland made by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.