She began writing stories about the Moomins during the war. The Moomin characters brought together Jansson’s gifts as an artist with her fluency as a writer. He would have frequent cameo appearances in her future drawings for the magazine, appearing in the sidelines or embroiled in the cartoon itself.

Illustrating for Garm provided her with the experimental space to introduce the first resemblance of Moomintroll who appeared as the long snouted troll, ‘Snork’ in 1943. At the young age of 15, her already formidable talent for caricature caught the attention of the liberal political satire magazine, Garm, and she went on to draw more than 500 caricatures and 100 cover images for them. The Smoking Girl, 1940, shows the artist as defiant and challenging, depicting a moment of deep concentration, whilst two years later in Lynx Boa (Self Portrait), 1942, the expression is softer and calmer, yet full of courage and self-esteem.ĭuring her first decades as an artist, Jansson produced an astonishing variety of illustrations. Works such as Mysterious Landscape, 1930s, reveal her early fascination with storytelling and colour whilst a key selection of self-portraits painted during the 1930s and ‘40s allow us to interpret the emotional climate of the different stages of her life. Tove Jansson will bring together 150 works to reintroduce Jansson as an artist of exceptional breadth and talent, tracing the key stages of her prolific career including her surrealist-inspired paintings of the 1930s and abstract work of the '60s, her satirical anti-war cartoons and book jacket designs, as well as a comprehensive display of early sketches for the Moomin characters and original comic strips.Īlthough Jansson worked with various different media throughout her life, she always considered herself primarily a painter.

Tove jansson art