Start your search by typing

Takao Tanabe

Experience land, sea and sky as painted by the internationally renowned Vancouver Island artist and Governor General award-winner Takao Tanabe. His expansive and gorgeous landscape paintings employ a sense of quiet atmosphere and formidable size to create an awe-inspiring vision of the West coast and Canadian country.

As a recipient of the Order of BC in 1993, the Order of Canada in 1999 and the Governor Generals Award in the Visual Arts and Media in 2003, it is remarkable that this long over-due retrospective is the first-ever major survey of Tanabe work in Canada. It surveys Tanabe?s career through over 60 works, from his early abstracts in the 50s, his hard-edged paintings of the 60s, his prairie paintings of the 70s as well as his landscapes from BC and other parts of the world in the 80s. At the centre of the exhibition is a large selection of his impressive and widely coveted large-format coastal landscape paintings, including several 18-foot long triptychs.

Jointly organized by the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and the Vancouver Art Gallery, and curated by Ian Thom, this landmark exhibition of over 60 works, some as long as 18 feet, will tour across the country after its inaugural presentation in Victoria October 7, 2005 until January 2, 2006.  A full colour book co-published with Douglas and McIntyre accompanies this retrospective.

“The West Coast has its bright, clear days where all is revealed, but I favour the grey mists, the rain-obscured islands and the clouds that hide the details. However much we desire order and clarity in all the details of our lives, there are always unexpected events that could cloud and change our course. Life is ragged. The Coast is like that, just enough detail to make it interesting, but not so clear as to be banal or overwhelming.”
– Takao Tanabe, 2001