Durk Dehner and Charles Leslie
at the Tom of Finland Awards
Oct. 2004

Fritz Lohman and Charles Leslie Receive
“The Tom of Finland Lifetime Achievement Award”
for “Promoting and Preserving Gay Art”
by William James

On October 7, 2004, Charles Leslie flew to Los Angeles to attend the reception at The Tom Finland Foundation’s house in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles which was part of the run-up to the Foundation’s awards dinner and its weekend Erotic Art Fair in West Hollywood’s Plummer Park. Over 70 artists from around the country and abroad had booths at the fair and The Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation had a much frequented information table.

The next morning Saturday, October 8th, the fair opened its first day to throngs of visitors and that evening a gala awards dinner was given at Hugo’s Restaurant where two other awards were also given. Michael Kirwan, who has shown with great success at Leslie-Lohman, was the recipient of the “Best Erotic Artist” award and Camille Paglia–the university professor/intellectual/writer (“Sexual Personae” etc.)–was given an award for her staunch, in-your-face challenges to all sorts of sexual repressiveness.

Charles and Durk Dehner, the founder head of The Tom Finland Foundation, seized the opportunity to discuss the future of both their foundations and commit themselves to greater collaboration in the future.