PROVENANCE
Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, United Kingdom

Takao Tanabe was born in 1926 in the small fishing community of Seal Cove (now part of Prince Rupert). His parents, prior to the Second World War, worked in the fishing community, and his family had a close connection to the natural world and the environment of the coast. Although Tanabe spent much of his life away from the coast of his native province, he returned permanently to British Columbia in 1980. Shortly thereafter Tanabe began to paint a magisterial series of images depicting the landscape of the Pacific coast in a manner that was entirely new and completely his own.

The scale of his work meant that these paintings were never done in situ but were a very considered and subtle distillation of photographic images that he took as he explored the coast. For Tanabe the coastal landscape was a subject that was almost infinitely rich, the variations of water, weather and landforms providing a profound source of subject matter. Tanabe’s interest was the natural landscape itself, rather than the role of humankind within it, and human traces are inferred rather than depicted.

Queen Charlotte Strait is the body of water between the northern end of Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia. Tanabe has chosen a view of the area containing very little land but commanding expanses of both sky and ocean. The islands of the Gordon Group and Dillon Point define the horizon just below the midpoint of the image. Although Tanabe has depicted the Gordon Group and Dillon Point with care (note, for example, the treelines on both the islands to the left of centre in the composition), the islands were not his principal focus in this image. His interest is in the sky itself and the surface of the ocean. The contrast between these two substantial elements of the composition reveals Tanabe’s genius as a painter.

In common with all of Tanabe’s later landscapes, Queen Charlotte Strait 1/88: Dillon Point and Gordon Group was painted on a flat table rather than a vertical easel. The use of a table to provide him with a horizontal painting surface allowed Tanabe to paint the base coat of both sky and water quickly and smoothly. It was after these foundation coats of paint had been applied that Tanabe was able to work with subtlety and directness to define the complex surface of the ocean and the cloud pattern of the sky.

A close viewing of the ocean surface reveals an extraordinary variety of texture and colour. We see surface swell, which animates the image in the foreground, and calm water in the distance beyond. This is an ocean that constantly moves and has a surface that is animated by subtle shifts of texture and light. Equal care has been taken with the sky, which has a thin but close band of cloud just above the horizon and an expanse of thin clouds rising to the top of the painting. The image is quiet but never still, both the sky and the ocean stirring, the islands providing a visual bridge between them.

Queen Charlotte Strait 1/88: Dillon Point and Gordon Group was the first work in the artist’s Queen Charlotte Strait series of 1988. A remarkable image, the painting reveals both Tanabe’s absolute command of his subject matter and equally his enormous skills as a painter.

We thank Ian M. Thom, Senior Curator—Historical at the Vancouver Art Gallery from 1988 to 2018, for contributing the above essay. Thom is the author of several Tanabe publications, including Takao Tanabe: Life & Work, published in 2024.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars