Tom of Finland: His Life and Times (Stonewall Inn Editions)

Tom of Finland: His Life and Times (Stonewall Inn Editions)
by F. Valentine Hooven

Tom of Finland: His Life and Times (Stonewall Inn Editions)
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Book Summary Information

Author: F. Valentine Hooven
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-09-15
ISBN: 031211365X
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Book Reviews of Tom of Finland: His Life and Times (Stonewall Inn Editions)

Book Review: Tom of Finland--As You Like Him
Summary: 5 Stars

For all the old and new fans of Tom of Finland's exquisite drawings of the hyper-masculine male physique, this book gives some of the personal history of the artist and the original models and stimulus for his erotic drawings. To see pictures of the Finnish men who worked on the sea and in the timber industry who were the inspiration for his work helps to understand his seminal period. The book from there further explicates his vision of the homage to the strong male types of the military, police and working men which he and many gay men find attractive. This is a book geared to adult gay men. For those "in the life", one can identify his "old guard" depictions of young men finding their "Sir" in the local working class, sailor or leather bar, and whose adulation of the symbols of such hyper masculinity is open and fearless. Tom has no peer in gay art, and is the model which many artists strive towards in this type of erotic, masculine and celebratory depictions of "real" men, comfortable with their physical strength and lust.

Summary of Tom of Finland: His Life and Times (Stonewall Inn Editions)

When the definitive history of hte emergence of gay culture in the second half of the twentieth century is written, one individual artist is almost certain to be acknowledged for having singlehandedly shaped the erotic imaginations of generations of gay men: hte Scandinavian illustrator Tom of Finland.

Working alone and in secret in a far-off land, the remarkable drawings that sprang from this artist's hands-leatherman-bikers, cowboys, cops, lumberjacks, hardhats, soldiers, and sailors -- become archetypal images that delineated the shape of homoerotic desire.

With Tom's full cooperation in the years before his death, F. Valentine Hooven III hs written a full biography of the man, while tracing the evolution and impact of his art on the world.

Perhaps no one has had a greater influence on gay male fashion than illustrator-cartoonist Tom of Finland. In this volume his unusual and triumphant life story is told in words and pictures. The pictures, of course, steal the show, as Tom's bubble-bottomed macho men fight, love, and punish each other. There's still much to be said about Tom's impact on American and European gay culture, but this book provides a good starting point not only for Tom's fans who want to learn about the man behind the leather-clad images, but also for the uninitiated who've always wondered where the leather-cap-and-chaps look origintated. Sadly, with Tom's death the flow of testosterone-packed pictures has stopped, but volumes like this show that there is still life in his legend.

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