Tove Jansson and her Families

If there’s one illustrator that featured as much in our childhoods as Quentin Blake, then it would probably be Tove Jansson. In 1945, the Finnish author and artist created the lovable, hippo-like Moomins. They debuted as a comic strip in London’s Evening News and, since then, more than 30 million copies of Moomins books have been sold around the world. Now, unseen drawings of the funny little characters, and over 100 other rarely seen pieces of work by Jansson are going on display as part of a major UK exhibition at the new Quentin Blake Centre of Illustration. Through those sketches, paintings, illustrations and photographs (including original illustrations for the Swedish edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland), Tove Jansson and her Families will spotlight the people who shaped her life and work, from her sculptor father to her friends within London and Finland’s queer circles to her life partner Tuulikki Pietilä.