In the gallery’s new hanging, Tove Jansson’s frescoes Party in the City (1947) and Party in the Country (1947) are joined by 13 photographs from Per Olov Jansson and excerpts from the documentary film Haru, Island of the Solitary. The film includes Super 8 footage shot by Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä during the summers that they spent together on the island of Klovharu. Additionally, a copy of one of Tove Jansson’s sea-themed paintings is recreated on one of the gallery’s walls.
Tove Jansson spent nearly all the summers of her life in the Pellinki archipelago, which is located approximately 50 kilometres from Helsinki. The Jansson family had a rental cottage there and later a more permanent place on the island of Bredskär, where Jansson and her brother Lars built a cabin. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, Jansson spent her summers on the island of Klovharu with her partner, graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä.
The photographs on display were shot by Jansson’s brother, photographer Per Olov Jansson (1920–2019). He photographed his sister and their family’s life in the archipelago for several decades.
Tove Jansson was a true prodigy as an artist. Though perhaps best known as the creator of the Moomins, she was also a painter, writer, comics artist, illustrator and script writer.
