Unseen drawings and more than 100 rarely seen works go on show at the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration from 21 November 2026 to 9 May 2027.
Tove Jansson and her Families opens at the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration in Clerkenwell on 21 November 2026. It is the first exhibition in the UK devoted to the work of the Moomins creator, and it runs until 9 May 2027.
The centre opened only a few months ago. It has now announced its winter programme, and the Jansson show is part of it. The exhibition includes drawings that have never been shown before. There are also more than 100 rarely seen works by Jansson, who lived from 1914 to 2001, and by the people closest to her. Many of them are sketches and paintings, with photographs among them too.
The show looks at how her family and friends left their mark on her work. Visitors can see The Moomins and the Great Flood, the first Moomin book to be published, which came out in Swedish in 1945 as Småtrollen och den stora översvåmningen. Drawings from her childhood are also on display. So are large murals she painted after the war. Early original illustrations she made for a Swedish edition of Alice in Wonderland, published in 1966, are included as well.
Co-curator Paul Gravett said the extended Moomin cast was “intimately inspired by her family, friends and lovers in Helsinki’s cultural circles and lesbian community”.
One section goes back to the home she grew up in. Jansson’s father was a sculptor. Signe Hammarsten Jansson, her mother, designed stamps and kept up a habit of drawing every day. With art all around her as a child, Jansson was drawn to illustration early on.
Later parts of the show cover her early career and how the Moomins began. The exhibition then follows her through family holidays and the summer trips she made each year with her life partner, Tuulikki Pietilä.
The centre is at 1 Myddelton Passage, EC1R 1AG. Angel is the nearest station. Tickets and more details are on the centre’s website.
Tove Jansson and her Families runs from 21 November 2026 to 9 May 2027 at the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration.
The centre is in Clerkenwell, at 1 Myddelton Passage, EC1R 1AG. Angel is the nearest station.
Drawings never shown before and more than 100 rarely seen works by Jansson and the people closest to her. The first Moomin book, published in 1945, is also on display.
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