Summer Foothills (4/79 Evening), 1979

Marlborough-Godard, Toronto/Montreal. Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto/Calgary. Private Collection, Ontario.

Nancy E. Dillow and Jane Rule, “Takao Tanabe, 1972-1976: The Land”, University of Regina, Saskatchewan, 1976, page 7. Robin Laurence, “A Landscaper of Many Colours: Tak Tanabe in Profile”, “Border Crossings”, Volume 16, Number 1, February 1997, page 42.

Tanabe was Head of the Art Department at the Banff School of Fine Arts from 1973 to 1980. During his tenure, he was painting dramatic semi-abstract landscapes. Nancy Dillow writes that “Tanabe's paintings of the land are the outcome of intense personal discipline and a search for the subtleties of landscape.” One of his favoured subjects were the foothills found at the edge of the prairies. In “Summer Foothills”, Tanabe takes a distant view of the subject and, through depicting the unevenness of the land and slight transitions in colour, the foothills become distinguishable. In an interview for “Border Crossings”, Tanabe remarked on his attachment to the subject: “What I want is this completely unoccupied, pristine land, as though I'm the first person to see it. It's lonely, it's mysterious, it has wonderful appeal to me. I feel great kinship with it.”