Tom of Finland valuation
Finnish artist, born Touko Laaksonen, whose drawings of hypermasculine men shaped twentieth-century gay culture.
Tom of Finland (1920–1991), born Touko Laaksonen in Kaarina, near Turku, moved to Helsinki in 1939 to study advertising.
What a work by Tom of Finland is worth
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation is free, made online from the photographs you send, and it commits you to nothing. We act for sellers across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States.
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Bio
Tom of Finland (1920–1991), born Touko Laaksonen in Kaarina, near Turku, moved to Helsinki in 1939 to study advertising. In 1956 he sent drawings to the American magazine Physique Pictorial, which published them in its spring 1957 issue under the name Tom. Over four decades he made some 3,500 illustrations, mostly in pencil, and his erotic drawings of men influenced gay culture from the 1960s onward. He founded the Tom of Finland Foundation in 1984 to preserve his work, and it still operates from Los Angeles. His drawings are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and Kiasma in Helsinki, and Finland issued stamps of his work in 2014.
What comes to market is drawings in pencil and related media, and prints and posters published later. Original drawings are what collectors look for, so a buyer will want to know whether a work is a drawing or a reproduction, and whether it is known to the Foundation. Many images circulated in magazines and as posters, and those are a separate category. Drawings should be checked for smudging, fading, foxing and creases, and for tape or staining from old mounts.
At a glance
- Born
- 8 May 1920, Kaarina
- Died
- 7 November 1991, Helsinki
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
