In her late forties, Tove Jansson built a cabin on an almost barren outcrop of rock in the Gulf of Finland.
The island was Klovharun, and for twenty-six summers Tove Jansson and her life partner, the graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä (‘Tooti’), retreated there to live, paint and write.
Notes from an Island, published in English for the first time, is both a memoir and homage to the island the two women loved. It is also a unique collaboration between two artists. Tove’s diary entries, vignettes and extracts from a seaman’s log frame the subtle washes and aquatints created by Tooti, and together they form a work of meditative beauty.
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