Signe Hammarsten-Jansson Signe Hammarsten-Jansson Signe "Ham" Hammarsten-Jansson (née Hammarsten, 1 June 1882 Hannäs, Sweden - 6 June 1970 Porvoo) was a Swedish graphic artist who designed, among other things, around 220 Finnish postage stamps during the course of three decades. She was the mother of Tove Jansson, creator of the highly successful "Moomin" characters. Signe Hammarsten came from a respectable Swedish clerical family and was the child of a pastor's daughter and a court chaplain. Hammarsten's parents were opposed to her becoming an artist, and as a girl she had considered a career as a surgeon. Hammarsten went through 8 years of
Tove Jansson captured on several hours of film, shot by Pietilä. Several documentaries have been made of this footage, the latest being "Haru, yksinäinen saari" ("Haru, the lonely island") (1998) and "Tove ja Tooti Euroopassa" ("Tove and Tooti in Europe") (2004). Jansson died on 27 June 2001 at the age of 86 from cancer and is buried with her parents and younger brother Lars. She is buried in the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki. Tove Jansson worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for the Swedish-language satirical magazine "Garm" from the 1930s to 1953. One of her political cartoons achieved a brief international fame: