Sold for: $85,250

PROVENANCE
Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto
Acquired from the above by the present Private Collection, Vancouver

LITERATURE
Ian M. Thom et al., Takao Tanabe, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2005, essay by Jeffrey Spalding, page 129

In works such as Georgia Strait, Sunset, Takao Tanabe gives “a riveting reply to the luminism of Edwin Church, Albert Bierstadt and a generation of young romantic landscape painters,” as Jeffrey Spalding wrote. Tanabe creates a dramatic contrast between the clouds and horizon suffused with peach and the dark indigo ocean, highlighted by steel grey across wavelets in the foreground. West Coast viewers of works like this are not surprised by such heightened colours and atmospheric effects, as they are often startled by such drama on the Pacific Ocean. These scenes awaken a sensation of awe that Tanabe captures so well, as he plays between his objective recording of the elements of the scene and the romantic and spiritual feelings it is sure to awaken in the viewer. Tanabe is part of the modernist group of painters that have become icons of the West Coast, such as Emily Carr, B.C. Binning, E.J. Hughes, Gordon Smith and Jack Shadbolt. Tanabe has affected our vision of the coast to the extent that when we are physically present in scenes such as this, we see them through his eyes.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars