The Los Angeles foundation devoted to preserving the legacy of Touko Laaksonen — the artist known as Tom of Finland — is in open conflict, with a cofounder leveling accusations at the organization while its board alleges harassment. The dispute concerns the management and direction of an institution that safeguards a collection the board values in the tens of millions of dollars.

At the center of the practical fallout is Tom House in Echo Park, the artist's longtime home and the foundation's headquarters. According to the board, the collection was until recently being kept in a storage unit in the house's driveway. After the area was reclassified as a high wildfire-risk zone, the board says the works have been relocated to a museum-caliber facility for their safety.

The stakes reflect how far Laaksonen's reputation has traveled since his beginnings in the queer erotica underground, submitting drawings of leather-clad, hypermasculine men to magazines like Physique Pictorial in the 1950s, sometimes dismissed as pornography. When Finland's postal service issued stamps honoring him in 2014, buyers from some 178 countries placed advance orders. A 2016 Taschen monograph drew contributions from John Waters and Camille Paglia; a 2017 stage musical about his life sold out more than 60 performances in Finland; and a 2023 exhibition at Helsinki's Kiasma museum was a hit, with Frieze calling him one of the country's greatest cultural exports.

The artist, who died in 1991, is represented commercially by David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles and New York and by Galerie Judin in Berlin. The foundation fight now threatens to overshadow that institutional standing.