Sold for: $133,250

PROVENANCE
Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Ian M. Thom et al., Takao Tanabe, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2005, essay by Jeffrey Spalding, page 135
Becky Rynor, “An Interview with Takao Tanabe,” National Gallery of Canada Magazine, July 21, 2014, https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/artists/an-interview-with-takao-tanabe

In 1973, Takao Tanabe became head of the art program and artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre. While there, Tanabe painted large prairie landscapes. These minimalist canvases depicted simple landforms, the imagery created by fields of paint stained into the canvas. In 1980, Tanabe resigned from teaching and moved back to his birthplace, British Columbia, to devote himself to painting full time. He settled in Errington, near Parksville on the east side of Vancouver Island, and began to paint the coastal equivalent of prairie and sky works – views of the ocean backed by mountains and islands under moody skies, inspired by ferry trips between his home and the mainland. He stated: “Since I am somewhat of a loner, the whole idea of mists and fog and storm on the West Coast intrigued me then, and it still intrigues me.” There is no human presence, and no ships or small boats ply the ocean in his work, as for Tanabe, “the whole idea is Mother Nature, not human intervention, that I see and try to paint.” You can feel the silence in his work, sensing only the rippling sea, or the breath of the wind.

In response to his environment, Tanabe used a monochromatic blue-grey palette, but from 1986 to 1988, he broke his colour reserve with a series of expressive, more colourful paintings such as this one. The view faces east; the sky is suffused with pale pink, and warm colours are reflected in the water from the unseen sunset behind the viewer. The darkened foreground indicates the transition to night, as do the deepening shadows on the mountains, creating contrast to the orange and deep pink tones. Mist rises from the water and settles into mountain hollows, while vapours descend from their tops. It is a tremendously evocative painting. The scale of this work gives it an undeniable presence – its long horizon brings an expansion of the viewer’s vision, immersing them in the landscape.

Tanabe works from photographs, his equivalent of the foundational sketch, in order to record the delicacy of these mist-enshrouded landscapes. He notes the exact location of each scene, like a navigator keeping records. In his coastal works, his paint surface changed from his previous staining approach as he built up the paint in layers, as many as eight or nine, although he avoids brush-strokes, preferring a smooth surface.

Tanabe is one of Canada’s most important landscape painters, who has been called “the Turner of the Queen Charlottes” for his mastery of the depiction of moody weather. In Gulf of Georgia 10/86: Near Campbell River, the sensitivity and subtlety of his atmospheric effects is breathtaking.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars