Tom of Finland XXL
by author Dian Hanson
with contributions by Camille Paglia, John Waters, Todd Oldham...
Hardcover, 29 x 40.5 cm, 666 pages
Multilingual Edition: English, French, German
Released in 2009


Bigger is better

Artist Tom of Finland aka Touko Laaksonen is cult in the international gay community. Already in 1998, the German publisher Taschen released with the title 'The Art of Pleasure' an introduction into the work of Tom of Finland. In February 2009 Taschen presented a new book about the artist's work: 'Tom of Finland XXL' by author Dian Hanson (born in Seattle in 1951, living in Los Angeles) contains over 1.000 images and covers six decades of his career. Dian, who has worked for 25 years making men's magazines such as Puritan, OUI, Outlaw Biker.... has collected texts by famous contributors like feminist Camille Paglia, John Waters (director of 'Pink Flamingos'), designer Todd Oldham, and others.

fig.: Tom of Finland, 1986, gouache on paper

Culture and media scientist Camille Anna Paglia (born 1947 in New York) is the author of five books, including 'Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson', her groundbreaking analysis of sexual ambiguity in art and literature. Since the mid-80ies Paglia is University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her partner, Alison Maddex.

Video: Camille Paglia at Collingswood Book Festival, 2006 ; by youtube.com/user/CARTAEAMORIS where you can find the other parts of the lecture about her fifth and most recent book 'Break, Blow, Burn'. The book was released in spring 2005 and became immediately a bestseller in US. 

Tom of Finland's work was gathered from all known collections across the US and Europe with the help of the Tom of Finland Foundation and features many drawings, paintings and preparatory sketches that have never been reproduced in any book. You will find images in the sequential order Tom intended for full artistic appreciation and erotic impact. Tom of Finland is renown for sensitive portraying sexual pleasure, expressions of love and his tributes to young men struck down by the AIDS epidemic.  

Check out more information about 'Tom of Finland XXL' www.taschen.com.


more culture>>>


Fashionable Video: inspired by an artwork of Tom of Finland by director Jean Baptiste Erreca youtube.com/user/jberreca.