An article about political subtexts and strategies in Antonio's fashion illustrations and the political and cultural impact of Tom of Finland's drawings

Taylor, Zoe

English

NECTAR

REPORT : Style  59 58  REPORT : StyleTHE ILLUSTRATION REPORT  SUMMER 2014  ISSUE 26THE ILLUSTRATION REPORT  SUMMER 2014  ISSUE 26The political impact of illustration on culture and society can be subtle and dramatic. ZOE TAYLOR examines two different visual approaches to political issues in the work of fashion illustrator ANTONIO LOPEZ, and TOM OF FINLANDAntonio, French Elle, 1966. Courtesy of the Antonio Lopez FoundationTHEPOLITICSOFSTYLEREPORT : Style  61 60  REPORT : StyleTHE ILLUSTRATION REPORT  SUMMER 2014  ISSUE 26THE ILLUSTRATION REPORT  SUMMER 2014  ISSUE 26In Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979), the media theorist Dick Hebdige writes of ‘the practice of resistance through style’. Although he is referring specifically to the way in which subcultures challenge the dominant culture by subverting its signs and investing them with new meanings, the idea captures what’s at stake in the work of Antonio Lopez and Tom of Finland.The fashion illustrations of Antonio Lopez not only resisted but, in the words of his close friend artist Paul Caranicas, buried “for all time the Anglo-Caucasian myopia which dominated fashion until his arrival.” Born in Puerto Rico in 1943, he moved to New York with his family at the age of seven and rose to fame in the 1960s. Twenty seven years after his death, he continues to be regarded as the most influential fashion illustrator of the late 20th century. I recently spoke to Caranicas, who is now the president of the Antonio Lopez Foundation, to find out more.It should be noted that although drawn by Antonio Lopez and simply signed ‘Antonio’, much of the work was made in collaboration with his creative partner, Juan Ramos. Many of their favourite models who became icons – including Pat Clevland, China Machado and Donyale Luna and ‘discoveries’ such as Grace Jones – were black, Latino or Asian. Caranicas points out that Lopez and Ramos “were among the very first to introduce people of colour into a world that had not acknowledged their exist -ence before, other than as an oddity or a diversion.” This wasn’t always welcome. “Some editors, particularly the ladies at American Vogue,” explains Caranicas, “were very critical of Antonio drawings because they did not ‘fit in’ with the image the magazine wanted to convey. This was in the 1960s.” European editors, however, were more open-minded, and none more so than Anna Piaggi, who, as editor of Vanity in the 1980’s, gave Antonio complete creative freedom. See, for instance, the 1983 illustration that shows black women dancing together, some wearing the contro -versial zoot suit and with obvious lesbian undertones.Lesser known are the photographs he inserted into his drawings, such as those of rundown houses pasted behind the two bored-looking white girls in the 1966 lin -gerie illustration (p59), made for French Elle. Caranicas recalls how the illustration was originally submitted with a photograph showing police brutality at the civil rights protests in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. But he says of similar illustrations submitted to The New York Times, “I think the juxtaposition was too much for the editors, who asked that the backgrounds be changed, and they complied.” But a number of drawings did get published with photos of urban tower blocks or workers in the background, contrasting ‘realness’ with the fantasy of the drawings. Caranicas says, “This was Juan’s idea. He wanted to con -textualise the drawings they were doing for The New York Times magazine… with photographs of the workers on 7th Avenue.” Caranicas observes that such subtexts were probably not fully appreciated: “Any racial or sexual undertones and/or any subliminal social commentary in their work before (the 1970s) would just not have been noticed by the public at large – although they may have been vaguely intuited by the perceptive viewer.” However, he says, “Once the gay revolution of the mid-1970s set in, Antonio began to be taken more seriously in art circles. Artists such as Alex Katz and Andy Warhol recognised an agenda, or at least a subliminal message that far exceeded the criteria of simple fashion illustration.”Last September, I attended a discussion at London’s ICA, ‘Art vs. Illustration’, which opened my eyes to these largely unknown political and social subtexts in Antonio’s work and highlighted the power of illustration to influ -ence culture. It formed the second half of From Style to Substance: Tom of Finland and Antonio Lopez, a day of talks organised as part of the exhibition Keep Your Timber Limber (Works on Paper).The discussion of Tom of Finland alongside Antonio was fitting. Born Touko Laaksonen in 1920, Tom was, like Antonio, a gay artist working in ‘commercial’ contexts. While Antonio sought to reconfigure the mainstream, Tom of Finland’s work was made for the gay subculture. Yet his stylised, homoerotic drawings had major repercus -sions for both gay and straight culture. His new icons of gay masculinity visualised a hyper-masculinity that, as Camille Paglia noted, broke “with the cultural legacy of Oscar Wilde, who promoted and flamboyantly embodied the androgynous aesthete”. Edward Lucie-Smith has observed that Tom “altered the way gay men think about themselves,” and “began to elaborate an identity type, with dress and physical attributes that gay and straight men alike began to inhabit.”Inspired by Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953) and the new spirit of nonconformity promoted by biker culture, Tom appropriated archetypes of straight man -liness – bikers, lumberjacks, cops, sailors – and recast them, first in suggestive narratives of queer desire for magazines such as Physique Pictorial in the late 1950s, then later (when censorship laws became less oppressive in the 1970s) in more ecstatically explicit scenarios of liberated gay sex. These archetypal characters appear most abun -dantly in Kake, his comic series spanning from 1968 to 1986, which focuses on the sexual exploits of a mousta -chioed leatherman. Tom’s drawings are considered to be the inspiration behind the leather scene and, more sig -nificantly, his unabashed representations of gay men are regarded as precursors of the 1960s pride movements. They were bold and politically charged at a time when, for instance, Supreme Court judges felt free to declaim homo -sexuality as “immoral”.Both artists’ careers spanned the era of civil rights and gay liberation and so their individual influence perhaps should not be overplayed – a number of forces were at work. Nonetheless, their work shows the power of drawing practised commercially to reimagine and, through stylistic force, convince audiences of alternatives to the main -stream consensus – a practice that can be called “resist-ance through style.” !Tom of Finland’s unabashed representations  of gay men are regarded as precursors of the 1960s pride movementsLopez and Ramos were among the very first to introduce people of colour into a world that had not acknowledged their existence before Tom of Finland, Untitled, c.1978, undated, signed, graphite on paper29.7 x 21 cm. Copyright Tom of Finland ® Foundation. Courtesy Stuart Shave/Modern Art, LondonAntonio, Italian Vanity, 1983. Courtesy of the Antonio Lopez Foundation

Resistance through style: Antonio and Tom of Finland

This work has been submitted to NECTAR, the Northampton ElectronicCollection of Theses and Research.ArticleTitle: Resistance through style: Antonio and Tom of FinlandCreator: Taylor, Z.Example citation: Taylor, Z. (2014) Resistance through style: Antonio and Tomof Finland. Varoom. 27, pp. 58-61. 1750-483X.Version: Submitted versionOfficial URL: http://www.varoom-mag.comhttp://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/7069/NECTARResistance Through Style  In Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979), the media theorist Dick Hebdige writes of ‘the practice of resistance through style’. Although he is referring specifically to the way in which subcultures challenge the dominant culture by subverting its signs and investing them with new meanings, the idea aptly describes the achievements of Antonio Lopez and Tom of Finland.  Antonio’s fashion illustrations not only resisted but, in the words of his close friend Paul Caranicas, buried ‘for all time the Anglo-Caucasian myopia which dominated fashion until his arrival’. Born in Puerto Rico in 1943, he moved to New York with his family at the age of seven and rose to fame in the 1960s. Twenty seven years after his death, he continues to be regarded as the most influential fashion illustrator of the late 20th century. I recently spoke to Caranicas, who is now the president of the Antonio Lopez Foundation, to find out more.  It should be noted that although drawn by Antonio Lopez and simply signed ‘Antonio’, much of the work was made in collaboration with his creative partner, Juan Ramos. Many of their favourite models who became icons – including Pat Clevland, China Machado and Donyale Luna and ‘discoveries’ such as Grace Jones – were black, Latino or Asian. Caranicas points out that Antonio and Juan ‘were among the very first to introduce people of colour into a world that had not acknowledged their existence before, other than as an oddity or a diversion’. This wasn’t always welcome. As Paul tells me: ‘Some editors, particularly the ladies at American Vogue, were very critical of Antonio drawings because they did not “fit in” with the image the magazine wanted to convey. This was in the Sixties.’   European editors, however, were more open-minded and none more so than Anna Piaggi, who, as editor of Italian Vanity in the Eighties, gave Antonio complete creative freedom. See, for instance, the 1983 illustration that shows black women dancing together, some wearing the controversial zoot suit and with obvious lesbian undertones.   Lesser known are the photographs he inserted into his drawings, such as those of rundown houses pasted behind the two bored-looking white girls in the 1966 lingerie illustration below, made for French Elle. Caranicas recalls how the illustration was originally submitted with a photograph showing police brutality at the civil rights protests in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. But he says of similar illustrations submitted to the New York Times: ‘I think the juxtaposition was too much for the editors, who asked that the backgrounds be changed, and they complied.’ But a number of drawings did get published with photos of urban tower blocks or workers in the background, contrasting ‘realness’ with the fantasy of the drawings. Caranicas says: ‘This was Juan’s idea. He wanted to contextualise the drawings they were doing for the New York Times magazine… with photographs of the workers on 7th Avenue.’    Caranicas observes that such subtexts were probably not fully appreciated: “Any racial or sexual undertones and/or any subliminal social commentary in their work before [the Seventies] would just not have been noticed by the public at large – although they may have been vaguely intuited by the perceptive viewer.” However, he says, “Once the gay revolution of the mid-Seventies set in, Antonio began to be taken more seriously in art circles; artists such as Alex Katz and Andy Warhol recognised an agenda, or at least a subliminal message that far exceeded the criteria of simple fashion illustration.”  Last September, I attended a discussion at London’s ICA, ‘Art vs. Illustration’, which opened my eyes to these largely unknown political and social subtexts in Antonio’s work and highlighted the power of illustration to influence culture. It formed the second half of ‘From Style to Substance: Tom of Finland and Antonio Lopez’, a day of talks organised as part of the exhibition Keep Your Timber Limber (Works on Paper).  The discussion of Tom of Finland alongside Antonio was fitting. Born Touko Laaksonen in 1920, Tom was, like Antonio, a gay artist working in ‘commercial’ contexts. While Antonio sought to reconfigure the mainstream, Tom of Finland’s work was made for the gay subculture. Yet his stylised, homoerotic drawings had major repercussions for both gay and straight culture. His new icons of gay masculinity visualised a hyper-masculinity that, as Camille Paglia noted, broke “with the cultural legacy of Oscar Wilde, who promoted and flamboyantly embodied the androgynous aesthete”. Edward Lucie-Smith has observed that Tom “altered the way gay men think about themselves” and “began to elaborate an identity type, with dress and physical attributes that gay and straight men alike began to inhabit”.  Inspired by Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953) and the new spirit of nonconformity promoted by biker culture, Tom appropriated archetypes of straight manliness – bikers, lumberjacks, cops, sailors – and recast them, first in suggestive narratives of queer desire for magazines such as Physique Pictorial in the late 1950s, then later (when censorship laws became less oppressive in the 1970s) in more ecstatically explicit scenarios of liberated gay sex. These archetypal characters appear most abundantly in Kake, his comic series spanning from 1968 to 1986, which focuses on the sexual exploits of a moustachioed leatherman. Tom’s drawings are considered to be the inspiration behind the leather scene and, more significantly, his unabashed representations of gay men are regarded as precursors of the Sixties pride movements. They were bold and politically charged at a time when, for instance, Supreme Court judges felt free to declaim homosexuality as “immoral”.  Both artists’ careers spanned the era of civil rights and gay liberation and so their individual influence perhaps should not be overplayed – a number of forces were at work. Nonetheless, their work shows the power of drawing practised commercially to reimagine and, through stylistic force, convince audiences of alternatives to the mainstream consensus: a practice that may be called ‘resistance through style’.  Zoë Taylor is an illustrator and BA Illustration Lecturer at the University of Northampton, a member of the VaroomLab research network. 

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Resistance Through Style: Antonio and Tom of Finland

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Resistance through style: Antonio and Tom of Finland

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