Ultimately the affair was to prove short lived but the couple remained lifelong friends.

Joy is further evident in The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My. A riot of colour, shape and form, it is heavily influenced by Matisse and a work of art in its own right. Both Mymble and Little My are the offspring of the older Mymble, a gloriously polyamorous character who lives for pleasure and to procreate. Her name derives from the Swedish slang mymla, meaning to make love, and Jansson’s circle delightfully used ‘mymble’ to refer to a lover of either sex.

‘Personal story’

Moominmania really began to take off in the 1950s, thanks in large part to the comic strips produced for London’s Evening News, which were distributed worldwide. Their popularity was to prove a double-edged sword, however. They provided a much needed regular income, but the demands of producing a weekly strip meant that Jansson’s time for painting was severely restricted.

It was a situation that could not continue and at the end of the 1950s Jansson said goodbye to the comic strips. The strength to make such a life-changing decision came from her new partner Tuulikki Pietilä, known as Tuuti, immortalised as Too-Ticky in Moominland Midwinter, a book which Paul Denton, a producer at the London’s Southbank Centre where Jansson’s works are currently on show, sees as their personal love story. Moomin wakes up in winter while the rest of the family are hibernating. Initially afraid, he meets Too-ticky who teaches him how to live in this new environment “and it’s much the same as Tuuti did with Jansson, teaching her a new way to live and love,” he says.