Tom of Finland and other erotic gay art

I've always wanted to see the Leslie-Lohman collection.

Tacky as fuck. Even as a young gayling I thought dicks hanging everywhere was just tasteless.

Here is a recent show of ToF drawings. If you click to the link you can visit some peruse the drawings. There are sketches and a fun complete drawings. Really kinky stuff, not his mainstream. I really enjoy Tom of Finland. It's a good combination of sexy, campy, and iconic.

Some of it is very cartoonish, but I enjoy the works of the artists and craftsmen you cite, OP. It may be because I'm into kinky sex the works celebrate.

But for gay erotic art, I really appreciate Paul Cadmus.

It's cheap and pulpy and fun.

I was going to mention Paul Cadmus, r4. He was the superior artist, imo.

I never liked ToF because it seemed very vanilla and unsexy to me. Just an endless parade of bodybuilders with 12 inch cocks. No appreciation for the different ways a man can be sexy.

I'm glad I got to see the George Quaintance exhibit in LA. I was surprised at how massive the paintings were.

Michael Kirwan is one of my favorites.

It's pin-up art like Vargas and Petty.

It made quite the impression on an 18 year old in the late 60s.

Younger guys have no idea how unavailable "erotic gay art" mags / books were back in the day.

"Daddy and the Muscle Academy" is a great doc worth checking out

R8 I met him at one of the TOF shows in LA. Super nice guy. RIP. All his work is done hand and watercolor.

If I were wealthy and had a pool and gardens I would have a giant Quaintance in the pool house.

Beyond tacky.

Terry Miller.

Ridiculous. Fake machismo. Once they open their mouth, purse fall out.

Quaintance is more my style. Absurdly ridiculous, "dimestore glamour."

Marc DeBauch

I love ToF and Harry Bush. I own several books of erotic art are now collectors items valued $500-$700. I wouldn’t hang the art on my walls but I love flipping through the books. I’m also an artist and learn a lot from their work.

Some contemporary artists like Joe Phillips, Mark Beard and Kent Lau are really talented too.

I never much cared for Kirwan because the faces on his creations were kind of monster-ish.

Always liked Harry Bush. Josman too, though the narratives were sometimes icky. Most other artists were not my cup of tea.

PS there was a thread here before about Maurice Vellekoop, who's had some hot erotic sketches.

R2 = Proud Philistine

R16 = Unaware he's not the market, conflating eroticism with humor with "not his kind of pornography, because too gay."

A lot of them here, and apparently everywhere.

MAGAy taste, rather like the Nazi embrace of "noble, masculine virility" against "homosexualist degradation and perversion."

Comedienne Margaret Cho is known for her impressive collection of erotic and gay art, which includes nude portraits of Chris Isaak.

The Hun Comics were the best if your fantasies were muscle, jocks, college, black and asian studs!

Those Chris Isaak paintings/sketches are hot.

tof is excellent.

especially thru the decades and examining how photography-advances are reflected in his skill.

so prolific, tof could potentially break a.i.-animation boundaries

Hun !!

R10 - I agree with you, although I'm a bit younger. I remember coming across this in the late 80s and the images seemed so gay-affirming - handsome men with great bodies, smiling and being gay.

Outside of porn which was hit or miss - there weren't images like this available. God knows there weren't hardly any gay men portrayed in films or TV - you really had to hunt for it.

Now it looks over-the-top and silly. People don't remember pre-internet how hard it was to get your hands on to ANYTHING gay, even in big cities. Sure you eventually found the gay bookstore but it was still not a great selection - and a lot of porn.

I won't want it displayed in my home. However, some extreme gays could want it. I think those who do might be in the adult entertainment industry, came out later in life, of people who are just consumed with everything gay (and those extremes that come with it).

It always struck me as silly and occasionally funny, but I’ve seldom found it sexy. I’d never want to see it on my walls.

[quote] Comedienne Margaret Cho

You’re being very generous.

The term “art” used here is generous. Cartoons maybe.

I like Paul Cadmus

Pavel Tchelitchew (1898-1957)

Formerly owned by Geoffrey Beene.

The Hun and Etienne produced raunchier material than Tom of Finland, in my opinion. But Tom certainly opened the way for them to do so.

There was an artist who was always in Advocate Men in the 90s. Very traditional drawings, but very hot.

I've always liked TOF just because it looked like the guys were having fun. You never saw happy gay guys in media when I was growing up. Even in porn they always looked miserable.

But I adore Harry Bush's art! He really knew how to draw sexy men.

Ironically, there are virtually no men in Finland who look like the men in his work.

(For proof, watch any Finnish tv series or films).

R40 - I saw the Tom of Finland film - there was actually a film about his life in Finland, how gays were arrested and his arrival in LA and how it opened a whole new world for him. I recommend it.

But IIRC, Tom was influenced by German WW2 wehrmacht uniforms and motorcycle culture.

He was almost arrested for even drawing these things and circulating one or two pieces among gay men in Berlin. So even drawing this shit got him in trouble.

Regardless of what our modern eyes view it - this was daring - even illegal, groundbreaking and liberating for gay men, way before gay liberation. It should be viewed with that lens.

It took a lot of risk and balls to make these images - as foreign and ridiculous as that may sound today.

R41, I also liked the Tom of Finland film

Rex was another artist who I like. A lot of his illustrations appeared in gay magazines.

JC Leyendecker was gay and did a lot of hot (though not overtly pornographic) illustrations

Marc DeBauch

Art?

Saul Lyons

Lucien Freud

Getting warmer

Robert Pearl was my neighbor in San Francisco during the 1970s. He was the guy who 'streaked' the Oscars a few years earlier. He had an art gallery South of Market. There was a Tom of Finland show at his gallery. By this time Tom was elderly. It was strange to see lots of leather-clad young men juxtaposed against a somewhat shrunken old man. Robert Pearl was murdered a little while late during a robbery at his gallery.

You mean Robert Opel?

Tom of Finland never interested me. I like real men.

I'll also refuse to look at AI images of attractive men. Will we reach a point when one won't be able to tell the difference?