After 30 years of limited circulation in gay magazines and exhibitions in gay clubs, Tom of Finland's frankly pornographic drawings have enjoyed a vast popularity since the 1970s: They have been exhibited worldwide and even mainstream publishers have produced collections of his work. Tom of Finland is now considered, in the words of his biographer, "the foremost name in gay erotic art" and the critic Nayland Blake has defined him "one of the gay world's few authentic icons," noting Tom's influence on artists as different as Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Weber, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. A foundation was established a few years before Tom's death to preserve and perpetuate his work and, in the 1990s, Tom of Finland's influence has even extended to fashion, as the name of the pornographer has become a trademark for a line of male clothes.

Tom of Finland was...