She was Big in Japan.Īnd, of course, she invented the Moomins, a family of white, forest-dwelling, big-snouted trolls, whose stories she told and illustrated in children’s novels, comic strips, plays, picture-books, and an opera. She wrote a picture book for children about the imminent end of the world and spare, tender fiction for adults about love and family. She considered emigrating at various times to Tonga and Morocco but, despite travelling widely, remained rooted in Finland where she became (dread accolade) a ‘national treasure’. She lived visibly and courageously with her partner, the Finnish artist Tuulikki Pietilä, at a time when lesbian relationships did not enjoy public acceptance. In her thirties she built a log cabin on an island and was a capable sailor. Descended on the one hand from a famous preacher, and on the other from a pioneer of the Girl Guide movement, she was raised on the Bible and on tales of adventure (Tarzan, Jules Verne, Edgar Allen Poe).

She was an acerbic and witty anti-fascist cartoonist during the Second World War, sending up Hitler and Stalin in covers for the Swedish-language periodical Garm. Jansson trained as a painter and illustrator in Stockholm and Paris, and made an early living through commissions and piecework. Born into Finland’s Swedish-speaking minority to a Swedish mother and a Finnish father, both artists, she grew up on both sides of the Baltic.

The artist, Tove Jansson (1914–2001), was a great colourist who lived a richly plural life. The bright colours of the canvas owe something to Matisse and something to Van Gogh: the girl is clad in gold on a ground of blue, like a medieval Virgin in reverse – and with all that might entail. Photo: Finnish National Gallery/Yehia Eweis © Moomin Characters The Smoking Girl (Self-Portrait) (1940), Tove Jansson.

Tove jansson art