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Pencil sketch of a portrait on a man with a moustache wearing a leather peaked cap. The background includes sketches of a number of well-built men posing

Tom of Finland: Love and Liberation

6 March – 28 June 2020
Exhibited at the House of Illustration

The UK’s first public exhibition dedicated solely to gay cultural icon Tom of Finland (born Touko Laaksonen) on the centenary of his birth.

This exhibition celebrated the artist whose unique aesthetic and homoerotic visions had a profound impact on the likes of Queen and the Village People – despite living and working in a country where both homosexuality and pornography were illegal.

It featured iconic, previously unseen drawings from Tom of Finland Foundation’s collection – unabashed tributes to gay sexuality and identity which continue to have an outsize influence today.

Selected reviews and articles

★★★★
"The exhibition carefully contextualises Tom of Finland’s art and its place in queer history..."

The Queer Review

Graphic drawing of six muscular men standing with their hands on their belts, dressed in differently-coloured trousers and black boots

Untitled drawing, 1972.

Pencil sketch of a portrait on a man with a moustache wearing a leather peaked cap. The background includes sketches of a number of well-built men posing

Portrait of Tom's long-term partner Durk, 1980.

Photograph of the Tom of Finland exhibition

Exhibition view of Tom of Finland: Love and Liberation at House of Illustration.

Artwork on display on an iridescent reflective wall at House of Illustration

Display view of Tom of Finland: Love and Liberation at House of Illustration.

All artworks © Tom of Finland, Tom of Finland Foundation Permanent Collection
All photographs © Paul Grover

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