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The Tom of Finland Foundation has championed Laaksonen’s work so effectively that it’s now displayed at leading galleries including New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 2014, the Finnish postal service even celebrated his impact with a set of commemorative postage stamps.
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And this month, the UK’s first public exhibition dedicated solely to his work opened at London’s House of Illustration (though the gallery is currently closed due to the Coronavirus crisis). Curator Olivia Ahmad says the show, produced in collaboration with the Tom of Finland Foundation on the centenary of Laaksonen’s birth, is necessary because he’s “one of the most influential figurative artists of the late 20th Century”.Īt the same time, Tom of Finland is still more of a cult figure than a household name like Andy Warhol (who owned several of his pieces) because his art remains incredibly provocative, especially to the straight male gaze. Many of his illustrations show men with heavily muscled torsos and surreally large genitalia engaging gleefully in sex acts. Some early Tom of Finland illustrations depicting soldiers in Nazi uniforms are also inherently problematic.