{"id":16914,"date":"2017-08-20T11:50:44","date_gmt":"2017-08-20T09:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/?p=16914"},"modified":"2025-05-10T23:21:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T21:21:53","slug":"copenhagen-tove-jansson-art-love-moomins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/copenhagen-tove-jansson-art-love-moomins\/","title":{"rendered":"Copenhagen: TOVE JANSSON – ART, LOVE & MOOMINS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photos by Feminine Moments<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Copyright
\nSelfie with Tove Jansson. Photo by Birthe Havmoeller<\/em><\/p>\n

TOVE JANSSON – ART, LOVE & MOOMINS
\nKunstforeningen Gl.Strand, Copenhagen, Denmark
\nThe exhibition runs through September 3, 2017<\/p>\n

Last week I went to see\u00a0TOVE JANSSON – ART, LOVE & MOOMINS<\/em>\u00a0at the exhibition space\u00a0Gl. Strand in Copenhagen. It is a retrospective exhibition about Finish painter, illustrator, author and lesbian Tove Jansson<\/a> (1914 – 2001).<\/p>\n

The exhibition features a series of Tove Jansson’s paintings, satirical anti-war illustrations and a great number of her original cartoons\u00a0and illustrations children\u2019s books. The material emphasises Tove Jansson\u2019s private life (with her family and her wife Tuulikki Pietil\u00e4), and in particular her extensive work with the Moomins, in drawings, photographs\u00a0and documentary films about her life. <\/p>\n

The exhibition coincides with the Copenhagen Pride and there has been held two guided pride tours of the exhibition.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Photo
\nSelf portraits – 1940, 1939 and 1937 – oil on canvas by Tove Jansson<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Tove
\nFamily by Tove Jansson (1942), oil on canvas, 89×116 cm<\/em><\/p>\n

Tove Jansson studied at University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, in Stockholm in 1930\u201333, the Graphic School of the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 1933\u20131937 and finally at L’\u00c9cole d’Adrien Holy and L’\u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1938. She displayed a number of artworks in exhibitions during the 30s and early 40s, and her first solo exhibition was held in 1943.<\/p>\n

\"Tove
\nTove Jansson cover, Garm, 1938<\/em><\/p>\n

Tove Jansson was 25 and living in Finland, when World War II broke out. She made illustrations and cover drawings for the Garm Magazine which I found very very humouristic. Garm was a liberal Swedish-language political journal published in Finland. At the time, her covers and illustrations for the magazine were nothing short of audacious. In her satirical anti-war illustrations Tove Jansson mocked Hitler and Stalin equally. She was a very brave woman(!) Her drawings were also well known in Sweden, where in 1941 she was voted the most humourous cartoonist in Scandinavia.<\/p>\n

\"Tove
\nTove Jansson magazine cover, Garm<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Tove
\nTove Jansson, a World War II satirical illustartion<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Tove
\nTove Jansson satirical cover illustation, Garm<\/em><\/p>\n

Towards the end of the war Tove started writing and illustrating the books about the Moomins and in the 50’s, she drew a mumi strip for the English news paper, The Evening News. This and her childrens books about the daily life of the Moomins were to earn her money and fame for the rest of her life: the Moomin books have been translated into more than 40 languages; she received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966 for her contribution as a children’s book author and everal stage productions have been made from her\u00a0Moomin series, including a number that Tove\u00a0herself was involved in. The earliest production was a 1949 theatrical version of Comet in Moominland<\/em> performed at \u00c5bo Svenska Teater in Finland.<\/p>\n

In the mid-50s Tove met her wife Tuulikki Pietil\u00e4<\/a> (1917-2009). Tuulikki was a Finnish graphic artist and professor, born in Seattle, Washington, United States. Tuulikki Pietil\u00e4 was one of the most influential people in Finnish graphic arts, and her work has been shown in numerous art exhibitions. She worked as a teacher in the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, for many years. Tove and Tuulikki lived together until Tove’s death in 2001.<\/p>\n

The exhibition hall Gl. Strand screens Moominland Tales: The Life of Tove Jansson <\/em>(BBC, 2012, 60 minutes) and Mumi-historier (Mumitrolde, Den herlige mumifamilies eventyrdagbog, Kometen i Mumiland)<\/em>, a short film in Danish about the Moomin books.<\/p>\n

The exhibition is created by Ateneum Finnish Art Gallery in co-operation with Kunstforeningen GL STRAND. A richly illustrated catalogue about the exhibition has been published. This catalogue is published in three editions (English, Danish and Swedish).<\/p>\n

\"Tove
\nTove Jansson satirical cover illustation, Garm 1944<\/em><\/p>\n

Related Link<\/h2>\n

Biography Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words by Boel Westin \u2013 review<\/a><\/em> by Sue Prideaux, The Guardian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feminine Moments went to see the retrospective exhibition about the life and oeuvre of Finish lesbian painter, author and illustrator Tove Jansson at Gl. Strand in Copenhagen, Denmark. The exhibition runs through September 3, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16915,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1704,449],"tags":[887],"class_list":["post-16914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-20-century-artists","category-lesbian-art-herstory","tag-tove-jansson"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.femininemoments.dk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}