Leatherman T-Shirt

The most enduring of Tom of Finland’s works are his drawings of bikers and leathermen. Inspired by Marlon Brando in ‘The Wild Ones’ (1953), the artist combined leather-clad bikers with his fetish for police and army uniforms, establishing an iconic gay look. Adopting the tight jeans, caps, and boots of working and military men as part of his aesthetic, the artist appropriated signifiers of class and machismo as symbols of sexuality itself. Here, a partially uniformed hunk presents himself to the viewer, condom in hand. Tom of Finland’s pioneering depictions of homosexual machismo in his images of bikers, soldiers, cowboys, sailors and labourers broadly represent queer, leather and muscle communities. A master draughtsman, his works gave form to an imaginative universe that, in turn, helped fuel real-world liberation movements and had a significant influence on a wide range of cultural figures, including the Village People, Freddie Mercury, Jean Paul Gaultier and Robert Mapplethorpe.