Virtual Film Screening: Landscape as Muse: Takao Tanabe

Please join us for the virtual screening of two films, Landscape is News: Takao Tanabe (2009) and A Work of Art: Takao Tanabe (2010) by Catharine Chesterman presented in partnership with Kay Meek Arts Centre.

Born in Prince Rupert in 1926, Tanabe was interned with his family during the Second World War in Lemon Creek, B.C. After the war, he joined some of his siblings in Winnipeg, where he attended the Winnipeg School of Art from 1946 to 1949, and then went on to continue his studies at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. The Emily Carr Scholarship enabled him to travel to Europe in 1953 and a Canada Council grant supported him for a year studying in Japan in 1959. In 1962, he settled in West Vancouver, living in a modern house designed by Peter Baker. In 1973, Tanabe became the head of the painting program at the Banff School of Fine Arts (now the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity), living and working there until 1980, when he moved to Vancouver Island, where he lives now.

Tanabe’s work is held in important national and international public and private collections, including the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Art Gallery of Ontario, Audain Art Museum, Canada Council Art Bank, Glenbow Museum, McMaster Museum of Art, National Gallery of Canada, Tate Museum, Vancouver Art Gallery, as well as the commercial collections of Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd., Scotiabank, and UBS Canada Inc. Tanabe is the recipient of several honorary degrees and awards including the Order of British Columbia (1993), Order of Canada (Member, 1999), the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2003), and the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts (2013).

For more information, please visit the Kay Meet Arts Centre website.