Dirty Pictures: Tom of Finland, Masculinity, and Homosexuality

More than the work of any other gay erotic artist, Tom of Finland's images of overdeveloped butch bikers, loggers and military men engaging in explicitly sexual activity helped define a gay aesthetic that has influenced such mainstream artists as Robert Mapplethorpe and Bruce Weber, as well as sexuality and masculinity in popular culture. Ramakers, an art historian born and based in Belgium, surveys the career of Tom of Finland--the nom de gay of Touko Laaksonen, born in Finland in 1920--from his earliest publications of the 1950s in Physique Pictorial, a homoerotic U.S. muscle magazine, to his many gallery and museum shows and his lucrative sales at Christie's. Astutely delineating Tom of Finland's influences--from Renaissance religious art to the work of Paul Cadmus, Charles Demuth and Kenneth Anger--Ramakers places his subject in the context of both high and commercial art. Drawing upon such diverse sources as Laura Mulvey's feminist film and literary theory, George Chauncey's history Gay New York and Kobena Mercer's critical race theory, Ramakers confronts the charges of misogyny, internalized homophobia and racism that have surrounded the artist's work. His discussion of Tom of Finland's idealized view of masculinity and its relationship to state-sponsored art of the Third Reich is nuanced and illuminating. Ultimately, Ramakers makes a convincing case for viewing Tom of Finland's work as highly political, anti-homophobic pedagogy as well as sex-positive erotica. (Mar.)