...the views I favour are 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 cloud and change our course. Life is ragged. The typical weather of the coast is like that, just enough detail to make it interesting but not so clear as to be banal or overwhelming. It can be a metaphor for life.'"
- Takao Tanabe, in an artist's statement of Oct. 12, 1999, cited by Roger H. Boulet in his essay in the exhibition catalogue Takao Tanabe: Wet Coasts and Dry Lands (Kelowna Art Gallery, Kelowna, B.C., 2000), at p. 13
Takao Tanabe, one of Canada's leading painters and printmakers, evolved from an abstract artist into a landscapist. In his landscapes he eliminates non-essential details, creating serene compositions which reward long contemplation. A distinguished art teacher and arts advocate, Tanabe was long associated with the Banff School of Fine Arts, Alberta.
Tanabe trained from 1946 with Joseph Plaskett at the Winnipeg School of Art, Manitoba, then attended the University of Manitoba. In 1951-52 Tanabe studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, New York, under Hans Hoffman and Reuben Tam. He took a class in 1953 at Banff with the British painter William Scott. Back in Vancouver, Tanabe learned typography working for Robert R. Reid and founded Periwinkle Press. After briefly attending Banff School of Fine Arts, Alberta, he traveled Europe for two years, studying at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London, in 1953. Tanabe learned Japanese ink painting (sumi-e) and calligraphy at the Tokyo University of Arts in 1959-61. He studied with Ikuo Hirayama and Yanagida Taiun, a practitioner of single-stroke Zen calligraphy on a large scale. Tanabe has also admired the quietly powerful art of Caspar David Friedrich and Albert Bierstadt.
The son of a commercial fisherman, Tanabe Tanabe summered in fishing camps on the Skeena River, B.C. He was interned as a Japanese alien during World War II. Tanabe's abstract paintings of the 1950s (Interior Arrangement with Red Hills, 1957) were succeeded in the early 1960s by Japanese-influenced ink drawings (Falling Water, 1967). From 1961 to 1968, Tanabe taught at the Vancouver Art School, painting murals. In 1968 he worked in Philadelphia, moving in 1969 to New York City. Based there until 1972, he painted hard-edge geometric abstracts in strong colours (Untitled No. 4, 1968). These evolved in the 1970s into semi-abstract landscapes dominated by wide horizons, influenced by Tanabe's encounters with northern Pennsylvania, the Hudson River Valley, and the Canadian prarie and foothills. From 1973, Tanabe headed the Art Department and was Artist-in-Residence at Banff School of Fine Arts. He moved to Vancouver Island in 1980. Tanabe's quiet, light-bathed landscapes capture the essence of time and place. He has exhibited since 1950, earning an international reputation.
Literature Source: National Gallery of Canada
3 works
coloured lithograph
14 × 24.25 in (35.6 × 61.6 cm) (sight)
colour lithograph
17 × 33 in (43.2 × 83.8 cm) (image)
woodcut in colours
13.25 × 21 in (33.7 × 53.3 cm) (sight)
1 work
2 works
2 works
2 works
3 works
etching
11.75 × 11.75 in (29.8 × 29.8 cm)
acrylic on canvas
66 × 45 in (167.6 × 114.3 cm)
acrylic on canvas
66 × 48 in (167.6 × 121.9 cm)
