THE magical Finnish creatures, the Moomins, will be the focus of a new exhibition at Bury art gallery celebrating the creatures’ 65th anniversary.

This is the first exhibition of a unique cultural partnership between Bury and Tampere in Finland.

The exhibition will capture the magic of The Moominvalley of the Tampere Art Museum, which creates the feeling of visiting the Moominvalley itself.

Dimly lit with pools of dappled light, with the Moomin boat and islands of stepping stones, this enchanted space will provide the perfect backdrop for these original Moomin illustrations.

Sophia Jansson, granddaughter of Tove Jansson, will be visiting the exhibition on Monday as she is appearing as part of Manchester Literature Festival.

Tove Jansson was a prolific illustrator and less well-known for her work produced in newspapers.

Depicting the cherished characters of Moominpapa, Moominmama, Moomintroll, Little My, Hemulen and The Groke, her beautiful drawings will be shown alongside a collection of rare examples of Jansson’s illustrations published in Finnish daily newspapers.

The exhibits appeal to children who are fascinated by tales of the Moomins, but also to adults who can appreciate Jansson’s expressive drawings and the darker subtexts of the images and stories.

Jansson created the white hippopotamus-looking creatures whose adventures were translated into 34 languages.

She wrote and illustrated eight books about these eccentric creatures, the first of which, The Moomins and the Great Flood, was published in 1945.

The Moominvalley of the Tampere Art Museum is a museum devoted to Jansson’s original works.

Its unique collections comprise about 2,000 works.

The two galleries have also confirmed exchange exhibitions of Finnish and British art to celebrate the cultural Olympiad for the London 2012 Games.

The exhibition coincides with the re-printing of the Moomin stories in English and the opening of Moomins and the Comet Chase, launched at the Cannes Film Festival.

* Magical Moominvalley is at Bury Art Gallery, Museum & Archives from Saturday, October 23 until January 15.