It has been a long road to recognition for the artist known as Tom of Finland, who started out in the queer erotica underground, submitting his drawings of gay men with eye-popping physiques, often dressed in leather fetish gear and engaged in equally eye-popping sex acts, to magazines like Physique Pictorial in the 1950s, sometimes seeing them branded as pornographic.
Despite those origins, he has arrived at international renown. When Finland’s postal service released stamps devoted to the artist in 2014, buyers placed orders from some 178 countries ahead of the launch. Filmmaker John Waters and critic Camille Paglia contributed to Taschen’s enormous 2016 book on the artist. When a musical devoted to his life opened in his home country in 2017, it sold out its run of more than 60 shows. A 2023 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki was a hit; Frieze called him “one of the country’s greatest cultural exports.” The artist is represented by David Kordansky Gallery, with locations in Los Angeles and New York, and Galerie Judin in Berlin.
But now there is significant conflict over the management and direction of the Tom of Finland Foundation, which is based in Los Angeles and is devoted to preserving the legacy of the artist born Touko Laaksonen (1920–1991). It looks after a collection of the artist’s work that is valued, according to the board, in the tens of millions of dollars, and which they say was until recently being kept in a storage unit in the driveway at Tom House, where the artist lived, in the Echo Park neighborhood, and where the foundation has long been headquartered. (Rizzoli published a book on the house in 2016.) The area was recently reclassified into a high-risk zone for wildfires; the board says the collection has since been relocated for its safety to a museum-caliber facility.
The board is facing accusations from Durk Dehner, who cofounded the foundation with the artist in 1984, and his partner, S. R. Sharp, who told ARTnews that he was an on-again, off-again employee at the foundation for decades. They also face considerable resentment and suspicion from other insiders, who spoke anonymously, whether for fear of retaliation or to protect future employment opportunities. Dehner, in a September 19 Instagram post, went so far as to call the leadership a “rogue board.” He is convinced, he told ARTnews, that the mostly New York–based board is intent on whisking the organization away from Los Angeles.
In emailed statements to ARTnews, the board explained its actions in detail and defended its leadership. The five-member board is currently headed by New York–based chairman Robert Knox Hayes, who works in banking and wealth management. Knox Hayes told ARTnews in a phone interview that board members have been subjected to harassment.
“A focus of the Board has been to strengthen and protect the Foundation,” the board said in its statement. “As part of that initiative, compliance counsel was engaged in early 2026. Every effort is being made to ensure that the Tom of Finland Foundation is in full compliance with California’s corporate code as it relates to nonprofits.”
Both sides do agree on one thing: the foundation is hard-up. According to tax forms filed for 2024, the organization had total revenue of about $678,000, and total expenses of about $800,000.
A Cofounder Departs Amid Controversy
Dehner resigned from his position as the foundation’s president in January 2025. Also at that time, he was removed from his position as a judge of the leather conference and competition International Mr. Leather (IML) after photos surfaced of him wearing Nazi regalia. (Tom drew men in uniform, including Nazi outfits, Them reported at the time, saying the artist decried their philosophy but added, “Of course I still drew them. They had the sexiest uniforms!”) Out reported that in a private Facebook post, Dehner apologized for the impact on the foundation: “I have violated my own code of ethics, and know that more consciousness is required in a world that does not necessarily like who we are as a people,” he reportedly wrote. Dehner did not answer requests for further comment.
The board explained in its statement, “For 40 years Durk Dehner served as President of the Board, a paid employee, [and] landlord of the Tom of Finland Foundation, and received payments from the Foundation’s commercial business. To ensure Foundation resources serve only its charitable mission, the Board reviewed its conflict of interest policy and processes, and followed governance practices that reinforce protections against risks such as self-dealing and private inurement. The Foundation takes every step to ensure it is in full compliance with Federal and California law.”
The foundation has been very active in the field. Since 1993, it has hosted the annual Tom of Finland Art and Culture Festival, which it describes as the world’s largest erotic art fair, held at various locations internationally. In 2024, the organization teamed up with the fashion brand Diesel, which supported a collaboration, and this month, Paris’s Galerie Regard hosted a show realized in partnership with Pornhub. Also in 1993, the foundation began to stage the Emerging Erotic Artist Contest, which has been organized 11 times since, most recently in 2024. Besides an extensive collection of Tom of Finland’s work, say two former staffers, the foundation also holds a collection of at least 3,000 pieces by queer artists.
Some recent projects undertaken by the organization raised red flags, say the board. Richard Villani, a former employee, told ARTnews he organized Amsterdam exhibitions at both Raam Art Space and Rob Gallery, which started in 1978 with a Tom of Finland exhibition; both involved former artists in residence at Tom House. Villani said that the foundation leadership refused to support them. Knox Hayes, in an email, told ARTnews that Villani was informed more than once that the projects could not proceed without board approval and that one of the artists to be shown is personally represented by Villani, raising the issue of private benefit from foundation activities.
“The Foundation became aware of activities in Amsterdam involving several former artists in residence,” said the board in its statement. They instigated to a review with legal counsel since “these activities were outside the Foundation’s approved programming.”
Said the board, “Counsel identified several compliance concerns. Under federal tax law and California nonprofit law, a 501(c)(3) organization must operate exclusively in furtherance of its stated charitable purpose, and its activities may not confer private benefit on individuals connected to the organization. The Amsterdam activities raised concerns on both counts: they fell outside the mission then on file with the IRS and the State of California, and they involved potential conflicts of interest on the part of a staff member. The activities also lacked the registrations required for a U.S. nonprofit to operate in the Netherlands and involved the sale of artwork. On that basis, the Foundation determined it could not formally approve the projects.”
An Artist Residency Program at Issue
Dehner and Sharp claim the board abruptly discontinued programs at Tom House, including an artist residency program, without notifying the artists, some of whom had gone to considerable trouble and expense in preparation to come to LA. A group of 41 artists who have had residencies has published an open letter to the foundation, saying they are “deeply concerned by the lack of transparency and abrupt interruption of several programs by the current administration.”
“All of us had transformative experiences at the Tom of Finland Foundation through our residencies,” write the artists, “and we want that artistic and community legacy to continue and develop into the future.”
The board, for its part, says that the foundation could hardly host a residency at Tom House, or any other activities, after Dehner, as landlord, evicted the foundation in July. In a September statement on the foundation’s website, the board of directors say that Dehner resigned in January of 2025 and that “the Foundation can no longer responsibly operate as a resident organization in Mr. Dehner’s home.”
“Artist selections had been made without appropriate Board oversight or transparency, and the Board did not have a complete list of the selected artists or their contact information,” said the leadership in the emailed statement. “When the Foundation learned it would have to leave Tom House, this made it extremely difficult to even identify and reach the artists whose residencies would be affected. Once the Board was able to identify the affected artists, they were offered reimbursement for rent paid in advance, fees, and non-refundable flights, along with a commitment to include them in future programming. We’ve also invited former residents to help shape what comes next, including grants, exhibition support and a traveling residency program.”
Dehner, Sharp and two people who were present say that much of the foundation’s staff was dismissed, in each other’s presence, in a June 30 meeting. The board tells ARTnews that four staff positions were eliminated on July 15 “to align operations with our resources,” adding that the director of operations and the digital media manager continued on, and the director of operations later resigned in August. (Sharp was the director of operations.)
Dehner and Sharp say that the board has not raised money for the organization, and point to the fact that none has served for more than two years. The board says that their time on the board doesn’t fully represent their years of involvement, and that one board member has been closely involved since 2020. They also said, “Over the last two and a half years, the current Board has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Foundation,” adding that “even in the last thirty days, approximately $75,000 was recently secured to support exhibitions, public programming, and the Foundation’s ongoing work supporting artists and preserving and sharing Tom’s legacy.”
Both sides of the conflict say they have only the best interests of the artist and the organization at heart.
“We are so unique,” said Sharp in a phone conversation. “Tom’s work was hidden under people’s beds and they jacked off to it, and it’s also in MoMA.” Several insiders noted that a site like Tom House is unique in the American cultural landscape, and indeed rare on a global scale.
“I had a very close and intimate relationship with Tom, and he trusted me to protect his work and that of other artists,” Dehner said in a phone call. “I cannot stand by and allow this to take place. I’m all for new directions, but to ignore all that we’ve accomplished in the past, it’s not wise. It’s a slap in the face for all of our lifetime members who have committed to the foundation.”
Board head Knox Hayes likewise tells ARTnews he and the board are only trying to do the right thing.
“We are dealing with hell-raisers,” he said in a phone call, “but we are hell-bent on protecting this organization.”