In the beginning, he drew them simply for his own pleasure. But in the nearly eight decades since Tom of Finland began creating them as a young man, his boldly erotic and hyper-masculine illustrations have grown evermore popular, and proven astoundingly enduring.
Long iconic and even formative for American gay society, Tom’s well-endowed and sexually charged imagery is now hitting the global mainstream, and it’s resonating with new and surprising audiences — like women, transgender men and even art connoisseurs in China — along the way, even as it finally turns the artist himself into a household name in his native Finland.
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