Celebrating 90 Years of Artek: Artek and Moomin
2025 marks a monumental milestone for Artek as it celebrates its 90th anniversary. Founded by four young idealists; Alvar Aalto, Aino Aalto, Maire Gullichsen, and Nils-Gustav Hahl (see below from top left). Artek set out to create a new type of furniture company. Their vision was to improve everyday living, bring modern art and design to Finland, and showcase the best of Finland to the world. Today, as Artek turns ninety, it stands as a beacon of Finnish design, constantly evolving while staying true to its original values.
To mark this special anniversary, Artek is launching the Artek + Moomin collection, which consists of celebratory editions of Stool 60 and Cabinet 250, featuring early drawings by Tove Jansson, Moomin’s creator. By partnering with Moomin, the famous fictional series depicting the lives of troll-like creatures who live in a peaceful valley, Artek honours the connection between Finnish design, nature, and community; a connection that has always been at the heart of the company.
In 2025, Moomin also celebrates the 80th anniversary of the first Moomin story, The Moomins and The Great Flood. Created by Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson, the Moomins made their debut in 1945 with this iconic tale of adventure and discovery. These beloved characters quickly captured the hearts of readers with their gentle humour, adventurous spirit, and timeless themes of friendship, family, and acceptance. The Moomin tales, set in an idyllic and whimsical world, are full of rich, imaginative landscapes that reflect Jansson’s love for the natural world, particularly her home in the Finnish archipelago. Over the years, the Moomins have become a global cultural phenomenon, with books, animated series, and an entire universe that continues to enchant people of all ages.
The Stool 60, originally designed by Alvar Aalto in 1933, is an iconic piece in design history, known for its versatility and timeless appeal. This celebration edition features laser-engraved illustrations of Moomin characters and handwritten notes by Jansson. To highlight its vintage character, the anniversary edition has a warm honey-stain finish, blending the best of both past and present.
The Cabinet 250 is a limited edition return of Aalto’s classic “cocktail cabinet,” from 1936. The cabinet’s birch veneer body and solid birch legs have a honey stain finish and when opened, the cabinet reveals an element of surprise: some unexpected guests appear in the form of Tove Jansson's Moomin characters, who are illustrated all over the interior in a nostalgic pen-drawn style. The artwork is a mix of doodle-like line drawings combined with hand-written texts from Jansson’s earliest notebooks and Moomin stories, giving the cabinet a truly special feel.
The Stool 60 is now available both in-store and online, while stocks last. We are the exclusive UK retailer for the limited-edition Cabinet 250, available in-store only. Of a global quantity of ninety cabinets, only two have been made available for the UK, both allocated to Aram.