International Art Treasures Web Magazine

February  2006  

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Takao Tanabe, one of the foremost landscape painters in Canada, is the subject of a retrospective currently touring his homeland. Such an exhibition deserves an accompanying text to add to the enjoyment of the artist's life long work

Takao Tanabe, the book, is divided into four sections. It opens with an Ian Thom penned biography entitled, naturally enough, An Artist's Life. Thom is the Senior Curator, Historical at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The location of Tanabe: A Retrospective. He is a respected authority on the art of British Columbia, an area in which Tanabe excels.

Tanabe was born in a small fishing cove in British Columbia in the autumn of 1926. The artist doesn't remember being poor his early memories are filled with the astounding colors found in nature. Thom explores in detail the impact of one of the darkest aspects of Canadian history as it directly affected the Tanabe family. During the Second World War Japanese Canadians were forced to live away from the coast in internment camps. Takao 'escaped', were that possible, through his decision to travel to Winnipeg. The young Tanabe learned the Winnipeg School of Art would accept him without a high school diploma: the experience he endured having interrupted his studies. Very early into his own education, he began to teach art with a summer school he organized in 1949. The next year he traveled to Banff, though he worked odd jobs this was the beginning of his long association with the Banff School of Fine Arts.

The first contribution to Takao Tanabe explores the various impacts on the artist's life and subsequently his work. It goes on to review his travels and those who crossed his path and in some cases became lifelong friends such as fellow artists William Townsend and William Scott.

At first his genre could be classified as abstract but later the artist returned to that which most impressed upon him as a child, the landscapes of British Columbia.

The second essay is Adventures in Abstraction or 'Perhaps I was always a Landscape Painter'. Roald Nasgaard was formerly the Chief Curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario. He is Chair and Professor in the Department of Art at Florida State University, Tallahassee. Tanabe is best known for his landscapes though these were produced during the last thirty years. It is incorrect to overlook the abstract works that he began in 1946 and continued to produce for a quarter century. After all this book and the accompanying exhibition are a retrospective of all of the artist's work not just those depicting nature.

Why, given his talent as a landscape painter did Tanabe spend so many years creating abstract works? That question is neatly explored looking at the time frame where modernity was the tool of art schools. Tanabe was the recipient of a scholarship from the Emily Carr Foundation. That permitted him to attend the London Central School of Arts and Crafts. Moreover he had the ability to travel across Europe to, like so many painters before him, study the past masters and learn from their work. During this two year time period he painted several watercolors reflecting the new landscapes he had seen during his travels. While in England Tanabe began his first long-term series The White Paintings.

Art Critic Nancy Tousley reflects on The Prairie Paintings. Tanabe viewed the highway between Winnipeg and Banff countless times. The series has another theme, the use of light. This, to date, is the largest number of works Tanabe had in any one series numbering over two hundred works.

The final essay, Anatomy of a Wave: Ebb and Flow in Errington is Jeffrey Spalding's contribution. He is Director and Chief Curator of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Tanabe: A Retrospective will be on view at that Gallery beginning in late May of this year.

Tanabe is a continually evolving artist. That is the theory of this final chapter. Ever since turning his attention to landscape that work too has grown and developed in a style unique to Tanabe.

The tome is resplendent with images of the Tanabe oeuvre spanning the decades of the artist's career.