Tove Jansson: Beyond The Moomins

THE SUCCESS OF THE FICTIONAL WORLD MADE ITS CREATOR FINLAND’S MOST FAMOUS ARTIST, BUT HER FIRST LOVE WAS PAINTING. SALLY HALES EXPLORES HOW SHE STROVE TO ACHIEVE HER DREAM

- Sally Hales

When, in the early 1950s, Charles Sutton of Associated Press needed a new comic strip artist for the London Evening News – now the Evening Standard – he found himself flying all the way to Helsinki. In the Finnish capital, he signed up a rising star of illustration, Tove Jansson, to draw her Moomins characters for the newspaper. This bulbous-nosed family first appeared in the UK in 1950 with the book Finn Family Moomintroll but, in the artist’s native land, her fictional universe had been growing in popularity for years. This success was hardly surprising. Moominvalley was a world nourished by its creator’s exquisite storytelling, compassion and artistic ability; the simple line that defined Moomintroll and his family and friends revealed an illustrator at the height of her powers.

The Moomins would come to define Tove for many, but these homely critters were far from the whole story. And, this month, an exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London brings together 15O works from across her oeuvre to present a more rounded view of this gifted woman, in particular, her first love – painting. As Sophia Jansson, the artist’s niece, says: “It was hugely important to Tove that she be recognised as a talented fine artist alongside the demands the Moomins made on her. It was something she struggled with all her life.”

EARLY PROMISE