Tom of Finland — Reference

Tom of Finland, Reference, innen, 2017

The cut and pasted pages Tom of Finland drew from.

Before he drew, Touko Laaksonen cut pictures from mainstream and early gay magazines and glued them onto sheets he called reference pages. He filed them by subject in binders: motorcycles, beards, hairdos, uniforms, leather jackets. Sometimes he drew straight over them. He also photographed his own models, developed the prints, cut them out and added them to the same binders.

This was the first zine the Tom of Finland Foundation ever published. It reproduces early collages and sketches from his own collection, some from the late 1950s, when he still worked in advertising. innen in Zurich made it with the Foundation for Printed Matter's LA Art Book Fair at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in February 2017.

The pages show the raw material behind the drawings.

Homework, in leather.

Zine, 28 pages, 13 by 19 cm, black and white offset. Edition of 500. Available online and in our shop at Vester Voldgade 106, Copenhagen.