Progress - Lever Brothers (1961)
Year: 1961
Format: Magazine cover
Illustrator: Tuulikki Pietilä (1917-2009)
Client: Progress (Lever Brothers)
Details: Progress was a magazine produced by Lever Brothers and then Unilever from the 1920s to the 1970s. Specially commissioned artists were used for each issue. The cover of this 1961 issue was illustrated by Tuulikki Pietilä.
Tuulikki Pietilä (1917-2009) was a Finnish graphic artist. Pietilä was born in Seattle, Washington, United States. She moved with her parents to Finland as a child.
Pietilä studied at several schools including Turku Drawing School, Stockholm’s University College of Arts, Crafts and Design and the Fernand Léger Art Academy in Paris.
Pietilä worked in many mediums, including woodcuts and linographs. Her attitude to style and technique was experimental, including influences from realism and cubism. Her work was widely exhibited. In 1963 Pietilä was awarded the Pro Finlandia medal. She became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, in 1982.
Pietilä met Tove Jansson while studying in the 1940s, and the two went on to become life partners and collaborators. They worked together on several projects, including many related to Jansson's characters, the Moomins - three-dimensional pieces created by Pietilä are held by the Moomin Museum in Tampere, Finland. Pietilä was the inspiration for the character Too-Ticky in Jansson's book Moominland Midwinter.
Pietilä’s oeuvre of over 1400 works was left to Helsinki’s Ateneum Art Museum.