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Tove Jansson’s monumental murals in public spaces are on display in a new way in the exhibition Tove Jansson – Paradise, at the Helsinki Art Museum HAM. The exhibition focuses on the artist’s large-scale works and their processes in various techniques, and will showcase newly discovered charcoal drawings.

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Tove Jansson‘s ambitious commissioned works for public spaces in the 1940s and 1950s occupies two floors of HAM’s facilities in an exhibition open until April 6th, 2025. Tove Jansson – Paradise focuses on presenting the artist’s lesser-known mural production in its entirety, from smaller decorative paintings to monumental works.

The exhibition is timely, telling the story of Tove Jansson’s dreams and aspirations for a utopia in war-ridden times. Jansson’s public paintings offer glimpses into her inexhaustible fantasy world.

Different painting techniques and a large number of public paintings

Tove Jansson painted most of her public monumental works in various buildings in her hometown of Helsinki, but she also made large-scale public commissions in other parts of Finland, such as the sea-themed murals in the coastal city of Hamina. Jansson’s murals are presented in an exhibition featuring sketches, actual works, and videos.

“At the exhibition in HAM, one can see all of Tove Jansson’s works or sketches for various public spaces and compare the themes she used in her monumental art,” says Heli Harni, curator of the exhibition at HAM Art Museum.

Jansson executed the paintings Party in the City and Party in the Countryside in several parts in metal frames using al fresco technique (on a wet lime plaster surface). Thanks to the metal frames, it was possible to move the murals to permanent museum conditions in HAM in 2015 and to ensure their preservation.

Some of Jansson’s works can only be viewed on-site in the buildings where they were painted. “These works are shown to the public not only through documentation, but also through sketches and video films that reveal Jansson’s painting process,” Harni says.

Jansson’s frenzied creative period

In the exhibition, the public gets to know Jansson as a hard-working, industrious artist. She painted her monumental public spaces during a frenzied creative period of more than ten years in the 1940s and 50s.

“It is almost impossible to imagine how she managed to do everything during these creative, hectic years of the 1940s and 1950s, as she also produced illustrations, drawings, Moomin cartoons, books, theatre productions, advertisements and paintings for various exhibitions, as well as a dozen of these monumental public commissions. Above all, she wanted to paint,” says Heli Harni.

“Moreover, during and after the war, it was certainly not easy to work; everything was in short supply and her time was also taken up by worrying about her comrades and how to get a hold of painting supplies.”

In the exhibition, Jansson’s living environment opens up through wartime photographs and Helsinki landscapes.

Public commissions were strongly linked to the post-World War II reconstruction period. Jansson usually obtained monumental commissions through her good networks and architectural connections. The Tullinpuomi house, the Apollonkatu girls’ school, the Strömberg Factory in Pitäjänmäki, the Domus Academica student residence, the children’s ward at the Aurora Hospital and the restaurant at Helsinki City Hall all feature monumental works by Tove Jansson, from small to large pieces.

Charcoal drawings on display for the first time

Before painting her murals, Jansson drew 1:1 charcoal drawings on sketch paper, the size of the paintings.

The 1:1 sketches of the finished works have survived in private hands for decades, and now, these working drawings are being brought out to explain the techniques Jansson used. The sketches have been opened for the first time, as far as is known, for the HAM exhibition.

“The sketches of the murals help us to understand her large-scale work and how she used her skills as a decorative painter to adapt the works to the public space and a particular building, taking into account its function,” says Harni.

“We can only imagine how she has worked on her subjects in her studio in Helsinki before travelling to the commissioned site to paint the sketch rolls. Everything had to be planned as precisely as possible in advance with paper and pencil and then reproduced on the wall surface of the painting,” says Harni.

Tove Jansson, Niilo Suihko and fresco Party in the City. © Tove Jansson Estate / Per Olov Jansson

Jansson has also carefully studied the colours in her al fresco and fresco-secco paintings. Small colour compositions help to understand her choices of colour in the monumental works.

“These sketches have rarely been shown in exhibitions, because as working sketches, they were not considered fit for exhibition purposes,” says Harni.

Exhibition catalogue

HAM has published an exhibition catalogue based on research on the murals, with comprehensive articles written not only by Heli Harni but also by art history experts and PhDs Sirke Happonen, Asta Kihlman and Johanna Ruohonen, who have studied Tove Jansson’s artistic production.

 “Discovering how much of Jansson’s work designed and made for public spaces has survived to the present day, has been exciting. It is surprising that it has not been comprehensively displayed before”, Harni notes.

Tove Jansson – Paradise opens the Moomin 80 anniversary 

HAM’s exhibition is part of the celebration of the Moomin 80 anniversary. In 2025, it will be 80 years since Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (The Moomins and the Great Flood) was published,  which will be celebrated with numerous publications and events.

The exhibition Tove Jansson – Paradise at the HAM Helsinki Art Museum is open from 25.10.2024 to 6.4.2025, in collaboration with Moomin Characters.

 

Cover image: Tove Jansson: Bird Blue, 1953. © Tove Jansson Estate. Photo: HAM / Maija Toivanen.