Tom of Finland’s life’s work is in the middle of a fierce controversy in the United States

Known for his homoerotic works, Laaksonen is one of the most internationally known Finnish visual artists, and a significant part of his works has been in the possession of the Los Angeles-based Tom of Finland Foundation.

It may even be the world’s largest Tom of Finland collection. Foundation according to the website it has at least 2,000 of Laaksonen’s works and sketches. Managed the foundation until summer 2026 S. R. Sharp tells HS on the phone that the known works of Tom of Finland have been calculated to be just under 4,000 in total.

The foundation operated for a long time in a house known as the Tom House in Echo Park, Los Angeles. The house was Laaksonen’s US apartment and studio.

Recently, the management of the foundation has changed, and the new board, having quarreled with the foundation’s long-term assets, has decided to move the collection out of Tom House.

It is not yet known where the collection will eventually be placed and how it will be made available to the public.

Tom Housessa has housed a home museum about Touko Laaksose, an artist community and an extensive archive. In addition to Laaksonen’s works, the archive has preserved a wider collection of queer art and erotic art inspired by Laaksonen.

Tom House has hosted artists from all over the world for residency periods for over ten years. The city of Los Angeles has granted the house the value of a cultural and historical object.

The future of all this is now unclear.

The foundation’s current board has dismissed the old staff and put residency activities on hold.

The foundation has justified the resignations with financial challenges. The artists and the foundation’s old management blame the foundation’s current management for not clearly stating what the future of the collection and the foundation’s operations is.

HS did not reach the management of the Tom of Finland Foundation for an interview despite several attempts.

Tom of Finland -foundation was founded in the United States in 1984 by Touko Laaksonen and his cooperation and dating partners Durk Dehner. The purpose of the foundation has been to protect Laaksonen’s legacy and raise the cultural and academic appreciation of erotic art.

Dehner has received the President of the Republic From Sauli Niinistö Knight of the Lion of Finland in 2023 as a thank you for preserving and displaying Laaksonen’s heritage.

Dehner’s run at the head of the foundation ended after pictures of him spread online at the turn of the year 2025, in which he posed in Nazi uniforms and symbols. When the pictures were noticed and Dehner was criticized, he left the position of chairman of the foundation in 2025 after 40 years.

Military uniforms from the Second World War were also important inspirations for Touko Laaksonen’s work. Dehner has since apologized for appearing in Nazi costumes.

Dehner and the current board of the foundation are not on speaking terms because, according to Dehner, the foundation does not agree to communicate with the host of Tom House except through lawyers.

HS did not reach Dehner for an interview, but on his behalf SR Sharp, who managed the foundation from Los Angeles until last summer, answered the questions on the phone. Sharp is also Dehner’s partner.

According to Sharp, this is how the events unfolded:

For a long time, the foundation has paid him rent for the use of Dehner’s house, the expenses of which have been used to maintain Tom House’s artist community and collections. In the summer of 2026, around the same time as the foundation laid off a large part of its staff, the foundation nevertheless stopped paying the rent without giving a reason and announced that it would retrieve the collection it owned.

Later, the company responsible for storing the collection packed and moved the collection of thousands of works from the Tom House to a warehouse in Los Angeles. Only a few dozen works that Laaksonen donated to Durk Dehner remained in Tom House.

Foundation states on its website that Tom House was not a safe place for long-term storage of its collections. Los Angeles’ Echo Park is evaluated as an area of ​​high wildfire risk.

Currently, according to Sharp’s information, its collections are properly stored according to museum industry standards.

“The good thing about this is that it’s a hundred percent safe warehouse.”

However, the California voters of Laaksonen’s heritage are worried by the fact that the foundation has not said exactly what it plans to do with the collection.

“Tom’s spirit lives in this house. And you are Finnish, after all. Finland is a place of honesty and openness. We inherited from Tom that we act openly and honestly. I am very sad. So much could have been resolved through direct communication.”

Tom Housessa the artists who were artists-in-residence have criticized the foundation’s board for the lack of information and transparency with an open letter.

One of the signatories of the letter was a researcher working at HAM at the Helsinki City Museum Antti Kauppinen.

He thinks that the collection is the largest single existing collection of Laaksonen’s works and significantly larger than the Laaksos collection of the modern art museum Kiasma. That’s why it is nationally important for Kauppi to follow what is happening to the collection now.

The foundation’s current board has stated on its website that it is committed to preserving and protecting Tom of Finland’s works, promoting the recognition of Touko Laaksonen’s work and supporting queer artist communities.

“In the future, we will build a more sustainable and global foundation in the form of new digital platforms, broader cooperation agreements and deeper trainings and events,” the foundation informs.

In the background of the article, Matteus Pentti, who was a resident artist at Tom House, who uses the artist name Tristor Blue, and Susanna Luoto, who worked for a long time with the Tom of Finland Foundation, have also been interviewed.