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The Arts Intel Report

Houses of Tove Jansson

A sketch by Tove Jansson.

Sept 29 – Oct 29, 2023
8 Rue de Mont-Louis, 75011 Paris, France

Tove Jansson’s life was unconventional. “I only want to live in peace,” she once said, “plant potatoes and dream!” The artist and children’s book author was born in 1914. Her family was bohemian and lived in Helsinki, the Finnish capital. Jansson wrote her first Moomins book in 1945, The Moomins and the Great Flood, which propelled her to worldwide stardom. Over the course of the series, which ended in 1970 with the ninth book, Moominvalley in November, a family of trolls with large round snouts navigate supernatural landscapes, comets, meteors, and dangerous forests, charming children all over the world. In Central Europe’s largest exhibition dedicated to Jansson, her most important illustrations are paired with work by artists who have followed in her footsteps. —Elena Clavarino