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IN THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE look at Takao Tanabe’s prints to date, the painter and master printmaker’s woodblock prints are being exhibited together for the first time, along with dozens of other works at the Surrey Art Gallery.
“No other Canadian artist has produced woodblocks of this scale and quality,” says Ian Thom, the guest curator behind the Takao Tanabe: Printmaker exhibition. “Tanabe was always willing to push the boundaries.”
The works exhibited span Tanabe’s career, from 1948 linocuts to landscape prints done just last year, totalling over 60 pieces. The works were compiled from the collections of the Kelowna Art Gallery, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. This iteration of the exhibition also features pieces from the Surrey Art Gallery’s permanent collection.
Tanabe was born in Seal Cove, B.C. in 1926, but was displaced during the Second World War, along with 22,000 other Japanese Canadians sent to internment camps by the Canadian government, according to the Art Canada Institute. Years and a few manual labour jobs later, Tanabe signed up for a sign-painting class at the Winnipeg School of Art. He went on to study at the Brooklyn Museum Art School before returning to B.C. to continue his career in art.
Tanabe has developed a distinct style in both painting and printmaking over the years. He is most known for his geometric and abstract pieces, and his West Coast landscapes that capture the serene beauty of the sky and the water—and his unique merging of the two.
“His earlier more abstract prints are amongst the most challenging in Canadian art,” says Thom, “and the later landscape prints are amongst the most brilliant images in Canadian printmaking. He is a painter and printmaker of the first order.”
A large series of woodblock prints Tanabe did in collaboration with Masato Arikushi, a Japanese block cutter and printer, exemplifies this for Thom: “His collaboration with Arikushi was truly extraordinary.”
Other featured works include Prairie Storm, a landscape that incorporates ink hand-brushing techniques, and a series of later prints that only exist as single copies, but were extremely challenging to print, Thom explains.
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