Touko Valio Laaksonen (8 May 1920 – 7 November 1991), known by the pseudonym Tom of Finland, was a Finnish artist who made stylized highly masculinized homoerotic art, and influenced late 20th-century gay culture.

[3] Another key difference is the lack of dramatic compositions, self-assertive poses, muscular bodies, and "detached exotic settings" that his later work embodied.

[3] In 1956 Laaksonen submitted drawings to the influential American magazine Physique Pictorial, which premiered the images in the 1957 Spring issue under the pseudonym Tom, as it resembled his given name Touko.

[3] Pulled from the Finnish mythology of lumberjacks representing strong masculinity, Laaksonen emphasized and privileged "homoerotic potentiality [...] relocating it in a gay context", a strategy repeated throughout his career.

[11] Laaksonen was influenced by images of bikers as well as artwork of George Quaintance and Etienne, among others, that he cited as his precursors, "disseminated to gay readership through homoerotic physique magazines" starting in 1950.

[12][9] Laaksonen's drawings of bikers and leathermen capitalized on the leather and denim outfits which differentiated those men from mainstream culture and suggested they were untamed, physical, and self-empowered.

[14][15] Laaksonen's drawings of this time "can be seen as consolidating an array of factors, styles and discourses already existing in the 1950s gay subcultures," which may have led to them being widely distributed and popularized within those cultures.

Laaksonen's style and content in the late 1950s and early 1960s was partly influenced by the U.S. censorship codes that restricted depiction of "overt homosexual acts".

[16] His work was published in the beefcake genre that began in the 1930s and predominantly featured photographs of attractive, muscular young men in athletic poses often shown demonstrating exercises.

[16] Aside from his work at the advertising agency, Laaksonen operated a small mail-order business, distributing reproductions of his artwork around the world by post, though he did not generate much income this way.

In the 1962 case of MANual Enterprises v. Day the United States Supreme Court ruled that nude male photographs were not inherently obscene.

[18] Laaksonen was able to publish his more overtly homoerotic work and it changed the context with "new possibilities and conventions for displaying frontal male nudity in magazines and movies.

[22] The photographic inspiration is used, on the one hand, to create lifelike, almost moving images, with convincing and active postures and gestures while Laaksonen exaggerates physical features and presents his ideal of masculine beauty and sexual allure, combining realism with fantasy.

[23] In 1979, Laaksonen, with businessman and friend Durk Dehner, co-founded the Tom of Finland Company to preserve the copyright on his art, which had been widely pirated.

[24] Also in 1979, Laaksonen and Lou Thomas (a co-founder of Colt Studio) published Target by Tom; The Natural Man, a series of photographs and drawings of adult performers including Bruno, Jeremy Brent, Chuck Gatlin, and Steve Sartori.

[26] Although Laaksonen was quite successful at this point, with his biography on the best-seller list, and Benedikt Taschen, the world's largest art book publisher reprinting and expanding a monograph of his works, he was most proud of the Foundation.

"[33] Many of his drawings were published in publications like Physique Pictorial, or were advertisements and murals for bath houses, leather bars and clubs, which were erotically charged or explicitly sexual spaces.

Laaksonen developed a friendship with gay photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whose work depicting sado-masochism and fetish iconography was also subject to controversy.

His detailed drawing technique has led to him being described as a "master with a pencil", while in contrast a reviewer for Dutch newspaper Het Parool described his work as "illustrative but without expressivity".

[41] Writing for Artforum, Kevin Killian said that seeing Tom of Finland originals "produces a strong respect for his nimble, witty creation".

[46][47] In 2019, the Los Angeles Times reported:[48]Tom’s cocksure leather look — a breakout sultry aesthetic dating to the 1950s — captured the early attention of artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Raymond Pettibon and Mike Kelley.

Today, Finland embraces its artist-son as a national hero, one backed by plenty of online merch — as diverse as sex toys and holiday ornaments.

[49][44] In 1995, Tom of Finland Clothing Company introduced a fashion line based on his works, which covers a wide array of looks besides the typified cutoff-jeans-and-jacket style of his drawings.

[49] ToFF is headquartered at TOM House,[52] a home in Echo Park, Los Angeles owned by Dehner at which Laaksonen lived for about a decade in his final years and where he created about 800 artworks (20% of his body of work).

The trustee of The Judith Rothschild Foundation, Harvey S. Shipley Miller, said, "Tom of Finland is one of the five most influential artists of the twentieth century.

[61] In 2020, as part of the 100th birthday celebrations, "Tom of Finland: Love and Liberation" at London's House of Illustration showed 40 originals with ephemera emphasizing fashion as an aspect of his work.

[64] Filmmaker Wes Hurley credits Tom of Finland as an influence in his work, including his short Peter and the Wolf and his cult comedy musical Waxie Moon in Fallen Jewel.

[65] Variety announced in 2013 that Finnish director Dome Karukoski was set to make a biopic of Laaksonen, entitled Tom of Finland.