Tove Jansson was a multi-talented artist long before, and after, the Moomin stories. She was a successful painter, illustrator, writer and cartoonist - she even wrote music! Get to know Tove Jansson’s artistic career in this article.
Tove Jansson (1914-2001) was born into a family of artists, and she knew from early on that she wanted to be one herself too.
Already as a child, she was gifted in drawing and an ingenious storyteller; writing and illustrating stories was a favourite pastime of hers.
In 1930, she finished her studies in one of the biggest Swedish-speaking schools in Helsinki and moved to Stockholm to study ceramic art, painting, and drawing at the Stockholm College of Applied Art, following her mother’s footsteps.
A few years later, she enrolled in the Helsinki Art Society’s drawing school at the Finnish National Gallery, where her father had studied sculpture. After that, she continued her art studies in Paris.
In 1944, at the age of 27, she moved into a studio in central Helsinki, where she lived and worked for many decades. The first Moomin story was also written in that studio!
Tove Jansson, the illustrator
Tove started publishing her first drawings and illustrations in 1928, first in children’s magazines, and from 1929, in the Finnish satire magazine, Garm, for which her mother Signe Hammarsten Jansson worked at the time.
For a long time, illustration work was Tove’s primary source of income. She worked for Garm until 1953 when the magazine closed. During this time, she drew more than 500 caricatures, a hundred cover images, and countless other illustrations.
Tove also illustrated books by other authors. Among others, she illustrated the Swedish and Finnish editions of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. These projects were an opportunity for her to free herself from “the Moomin style” that by then had become a staple form throughout eight published Moomin books.
Tove Jansson, the painter
Tove Jansson’s visual art expanded across different techniques and styles through a variety of paintings, graphics and public works.
The years 1937 to 1940 – many years before the first Moomin story was published – were a time when Tove truly matured as an artist and found her style. The change from detailed to simplistic and even abstract could be witnessed through her solo exhibitions over the decades.
Apart from her traditional paintings, Tove’s work was also commissioned for several public spaces, such as a unique altar painting in the church of Teuva, Moomin murals at the Aurora Children’s Hospital in Helsinki, and large frescoes in the Kaupunginkellari restaurant of Helsinki City Hall (now found at HAM, the Helsinki Art Museum).
Most of Tove’s paintings were of natural sceneries, people and self-portraits, but there was one painting where she also included Moomin-themed figures: the Källskär painting from 1960.
A new exhibition featuring Tove Jansson’s frescoes and some never-before-seen charcoal drawings will be opened at HAM on 24 October 2024. Read more about the exhibition here.
Tove Jansson, the writer
Tove published her first story already at 16: a book called Sara and Pelle and the Water-Sprite’s Octopuses, under the alias Vera Haij.
Though her main focus (and passion) throughout her studies and career was visual art, Tove Jansson published 12 other novels and many short stories alongside the 12 Moomin books. Her writing was often praised as transcendent across various genres.
One of her best-known novels, The Summer Book (1972), has been adapted into a film, to be released in 2024.
Tove Jansson, the cartoonist
Along with the Moomins’ popularity came various adaptations and commissions. In 1952, the stories got a new home in the British newspaper, the London Evening News, where Moomin comics were published weekly for 21 years.
The comics were yet another form of art Tove mastered and made her own. Though an important shift towards a more stable income, after a few years, she handed the task over to her brother, Lars Jansson, to focus on the growing popularity of Moomin as a brand – and to make space for her original love of painting.
Tove’s artistic legacy is unique and multifaceted, encompassing still life paintings, landscapes, portraits, and caricatures as well as illustrations, abstract paintings, novels, picture books, theatre plays, opera librettos, poems, songs, wall paintings, book covers, posters, and advertisements.
Read more about Tove Jansson’s artistic work on tovejansson.com, where you can study a selection of her paintings in an online gallery, read about her childhood in an artist family, and get to know some of the artistic friends and family who influenced her work.
Moomins on display in HAM’s monumental Tove Jansson exhibition
Tove Jansson’s monumental murals will be featured in a new way at a major exhibition at HAM, the Helsinki Art Museum, in October.
The Källskär painting – the only Moomin-themed painting by Tove Jansson
The mini documentary “Wild Cliffs” tells the fascinating story behind the Källskär painting, the only Moomin-themed painting by Tove Jansson.
Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä: A Lifelong Companionship
Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä met during art studies and formed a bond that would last through their lifetime. Get inspired by their love!