Beryl Cook/Tom of Finland

This bold catalogue brings together the work of two cultural icons: Beryl Cook (1926-2008) and Tom of Finland (1920-1991), inspired by the 2024 exhibition Beryl Cook/Tom of Finland at Studio Voltaire in London. The pairing is perhaps unexpected, yet immediate and compelling relationships between their practices are evident. Fundamentally, both artists employed a sustained and coherent way of hyper-realising the body in images that celebrate pleasure and deny shame. Together, their works reveal interconnected ideas surrounding sexuality, gender, taste and class. Artist and writer Huw Lemmey has contributed an incisive new essay exploring the queer contexts inherent to Tom of Finland's work, but that also finds latent resonance in Cook's paintings of gay bars and shapely women. He further considers the commercial forms of distribution that made their complex bodies of works highly accessible.