Erotic artists: Erotic photographers, Fetish artists, Pin-up artists, John Willie, Eric Stanton, Robert Bishop, List of fetish artists, Art Frahm, Tom of Finland, Adam Hughes, Ken Marcus, Georges Pichard, Jirí Ru¿ek, Anthony Christian

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 41. Chapters: Erotic photographers, Fetish artists, Pin-up artists, John Willie, Eric Stanton, Robert Bishop, List of fetish artists, Art Frahm, Tom of Finland, Adam Hughes, Ken Marcus, Georges Pichard, Jirí Ru¿ek, Anthony Christian, Charles Dana Gibson, Frank Brunner, Alberto Vargas, Boris Vallejo, Fakir Musafar, George Petty, Malcolm McKesson, Barry Blair, Roger Woods, McClelland Barclay, Hajime Sorayama, Peter Dolving, Earle K. Bergey, Haddon Sundblom, Michael Manning, Rolf Armstrong, Drubskin, Gil Elvgren, Earl Moran, Irvin Bomb, Trevor Brown, Enoch Bolles, Roberto Baldazzini, Julie Bell, Peter Driben, Joyce Ballantyne, Drew Posada, Phil Henderson, Philip Warner, Kevin J. Taylor, Robert Blue, Chris Achilleos, Gene Bilbrew, Zoë Mozert, Olivia De Berardinis, Dräko Bogdanovic, Namio Harukawa, Patrick Conlon, Franz von Bayros, Jon Hul, Archie Dickens, Sardax, Baron von Lind, David Wright, Jacob Gestman Geradts, Al Buell, List of pin-up artists, Harry Ekman, Edward Reed, Arnold Armitage, Ben-Hur Baz, Roy Best, Vaughan Alden Bass, Aslan, Harry C. Bradley, Armando Huerta, Ruth Deckard. Excerpt: Touko Laaksonen, best known by his pseudonym Tom of Finland (8 May 1920 ¿ 7 November 1991) was a Finnish artist notable for his stylized androerotic and fetish art and his influence on late twentieth century gay culture. He has been called the "most influential creator of gay pornographic images" by cultural historian Joseph W. Slade. Over the course of four decades he produced some 3500 illustrations, mostly featuring men with exaggerated primary and secondary sex traits: heavily muscled torsos, limbs, and buttocks, and large penises. Tight or partially removed clothing showed off these traits, with the penis often visible as a bulge in tight trousers or prominently displayed for the viewer. His drawings frequently feature two or more men either immediately preceding or during explicit sexual activity. Nearly all of his characters were versatile and obviously enjoyed the bottom as well as the top role in sexual intercourse. Laaksonen was born and raised by a middle-class family in Kaarina, a city in southwestern Finland, near the city of Turku. He studied in Turku and in 1939 he moved to the country's capital Helsinki to study advertising, he also started drawing erotic images for his own pleasure. He first kept his drawings hidden, but then destroyed them "at least by the time I went to serve the army". His drawings were based on images of masculine laborers he had seen from an early age. The country soon became embroiled in the Winter War with the USSR, and then formally involved in World War II. He was conscripted in February 1940 into the Finnish Army. He served as an anti-aircraft officer, holding the rank of a second lieutenant. He later attributed his fetishistic interest in uniformed men to encounters with men in army uniform, especially soldiers of the German Wehrmacht serving in Finland at that time. After the war, in 1945, he returned to studies at the art college. Laaksonen's artwork of this period compared to later works is considered more romantic and