e-news #143 november 28, 2012

TOM  OF  FINLAND  FOUNDATION

Tips of the Hat and Odds & Ends:

Consul General of Finland, Kirsti Westphalen

Consul General Of Finland Visits TOM House After coming to the Erotic Art Fair, Kirsti Westphalen, the Finnish Consulate General in Los Angeles decided to visit TOM House in October with her husband, Mouf. “Both of us wanted to thank you and your colleagues for the Saturday event,” she said about the Art Fair via email. “We were thrilled and I was reading the book over the weekend. What a life Touko had!”

TOM - One Of The Most Influential Gay Men In The World Tom is in good company; the list in Mate Magizine's 500 Power Gays is topped by Leonardo da Vinci, Socrates and Alexander the Great. Is it porn, or art? The horny comic stories of Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, were originally meant as rocket-polish fodder, buth these days have a distinctly more respectable image; adorning the walls of many leading art galleries. Laaksonen was the first artist in the 1950s to portray gay men as proud, assertive machos, and in doing so, provided a vigorous boost to gay liberation. Left: TOM OF FINLAND (Finnish, 1920 – 1991), Untitled, 1988, Graphite on paper, ToFF #88.01, © 1988 Tom of Finland Foundation More on TOM's Blog

TOM’s Room In TOM House Such a modest and small space considering that some of the most famous and important drawings of Gay culture were done right here. Call ToFF to schedule a tour of TOM’s studio and residence: 213.250.1685. Left: Pete Karjalainen shows Tom’s World War II uniform and his favorite leather jacket.

Mr. Palm Springs Leather 2013 – Scott Smith!

Palm Springs Leather Pride Thanks! Palm Springs was da BOMB! Thanks to Valentine, Michael Kirwan, Norm and Johnny for being part of the ToFF booth. Congratulations to Mr. Palm Springs Leather 2013 – Scott Smith! And a special thanks to those that attended, participated, and supported the artists.

Artist In Print
REX: Verboten!

REX, Helping Hand (Detail),
1989, Pen and ink on paper, © 2012 Rex

REX is one of the foremost artists of forbidden and politically incorrect sexual activity among men, his is more than merely “Gay art”. REX the artist is a historian, a voyeur, a muckraker and a trouble maker, a provocateur, a sensualist and a hedonist, the sensualist and a hedonist, the sensitive and observant portrayer of a secret world…

The world of leather and denim, steamy basements and grimy garages, anonymous sweaty tops and groveling sexpigs is perfectly suited to his black & white detailed and moody pointillistic renderings.

— Bob Mainardi, San Francisco, 2012

A comprehensive collection of the ingenious work of REX. His gloomy masterpieces lead us into a world full of lust and submission, full of dominance and sexual power.

Available from Bruno Gmünder. 128 Pages, 8.50" x 11.25", Hardcover, English

Advocate Holiday Gifts Recommends —
Holiday Gifts for the Entertainer

Coffee-Table Tomes That Reflect Your Interests

When Touko Laaksonen, the boy who became Tom of Finland, began drawing bikers it was the same year Marlon Brando showed the world it’s first leatherman by playing the leader of a motorcycle club in 1953's The Wild One. Decades later, Tom of Finland Vol. II: Bikers by Dian Hanson features some of the artist’s best multi-panel comics and single panel drawings and paintings.

Bonus, it comes with a Panic Jacket, which lets you turn the book from sexy to serious in case grandma is visiting. $17.99, Taschen.

More Gift Ideas by Diane Anderson-Minshall at
Advocate.com

Why Naked Men Get Short Shrift
by Mary M. Lane

Why does the male nude get no respect?

For centuries, naked women in Western art have been openly celebrated as objects of desire. From Botticelli’s coy Birth of Venus circa 1485 to Annie Leibovitz’s 1991 portrait of a heavily pregnant Demi Moore, the female form has been idealized as a thing of beauty.

Pity the naked man. Popes throughout history have covered up the private parts of male nude sculptures in Vatican City. Even history’s most famous male nude, Michelangelo’s David, was subjected to the constrictions of modesty: London museum officials ordered a fig leaf be placed strategically over a replica in a London museum, after it shocked Queen Victoria.

So it may not have come as a total surprise for the organizers of Nude Men, a new exhibit at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, that the show would generate some controversy.

Nude Men begins with statues from antiquity, including one of the Egyptian court official Snofrunefer dated 2400 B.C. But the bulk of the show chronicles developments in the past 200 years.

More on TOM's Blog

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