Tuko Laaksonen 1920 - 1991
(aka Tom of Finland)
Finnish, illustrator

"Toukokuu" in Finnish is the word for the month of May for which Tom was named, hence Touko Laaksonen. Both of his parents were school teachers. By the time he was five he was playing the piano and drawing comic strips. Tom went to art school in 1939 in Helsinki to study advertising. When Stalin invaded Finland, Tom was drafted into the army where he found the uniforms and sex he so well loved and drew in his art. After the war Tom went back to studying art and took piano classes at the famed Sibelius Institute. By day he did freelance advertising, window displays, and fashion design and in the evenings, he played piano at parties and cafes. In 1953 he met Veli, his lover for the next 28 years. He was urged by a friend in 1956 to send his secret artwork to the popular American magazine, Physique Pictorial. The editor loved the work and the Spring 1957 issue featured a laughing lumberjack by "Tom of Finland." By 1973, Tom was able to quit his day job and devote full time to drawing his "dirty drawings." He had his first art exhibition in 1973 in Hamburg, Germany. His first trip to the U.S. was in 1978 when he was invited to exhibit in Los Angeles. Tom's lover, Veli, died of throat cancer in 1981. When Tom became so ill that his disease and the medication made his hands tremble too much for him to work, he returned to pastel, which had been a childhood favorite medium. He did a series of richly colored nudes until his death from emphysema-induced stroke on November 7, 1991. In 2003 The Tom of Finland Foundation donated a fine drawing to the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation's permanent collection.