100th anniversary of the Finnish artist and writer behind the Moomins

Tove Jansson, world-famous for the Moomins, was a versatile artist who completed many paintings, works of graphic arts and public works of art during her career. In addition to the Moomin books, she received recognition for her short stories and novels. Tove Jansson was a prolific artist whose career started in the 1930s and continued long into the 1990s.

An experimental artist and a writer with an eye for details. As an artist, Jansson mastered many techniques and held exhibitions that took her art into new and sometimes experimental directions. In addition to paintings, her works include a lot of works of graphic arts and public works of art from murals to mosaics. Throughout her life, open-mindedness and the pursuit of freedom were among Tove Jansson's strengths.

Tove Jansson also became known as a writer who put her mind to writing with the utmost meticulousness. Her short stories and novels are known for minimalistic narration and careful composition.

The Moomins remain popular from generation to generation. The first time Jansson drew the Moomintroll character it was for Garm, a liberal and satirical magazine that sniped at the world of global leaders during the Second World War.  The Moomins and the Great Flood, published in 1945, was the first in a series of books that became the most visible and best-known part of Tove Jansson's career. The third Moomin book, Finn Family Moomintroll, was published in 1948 and increased Jansson's fame outside Finland and Sweden.

In the 1950s, Tove Jansson started to draw and write a Moomin comic strip for the most widely read evening newspaper in the world, Evening News, which was published in London. Soon the comic strip was read in more than 20 countries.

The popularity of the Moomins has continued from generation to generation. The Moomin books have been translated into more than 30 languages and the Moomins have become familiar figures on television, in films, on theatre stages and in opera, too.

Thank you Ella for these lovely maxi cards depicting one of my favourite author and artist and the other showing the popular characters she created.