Audain Art Museum Presents Takao Tanabe’s Travel Paintings in ‘Vistas’

The Audain Art Museum in Whistler, British Columbia, is presenting ‘Vistas: From Takao Tanabe’s Travels’, on view from May 16 to September 21, 2026. Curated by Kiriko Watanabe, the exhibition brings together Tanabe’s travel paintings from British Columbia, North America, the Arctic and Europe, examining how observed landscapes become meditations on place and memory.

The exhibition focuses on Tanabe’s response to the environments he encountered during extensive travels. According to the museum, the artist carried a camera with him and recorded the geographical features and distinctive atmospheres of places that sparked his curiosity. He later translated those observations in the studio into paintings balancing close attention to the landscape with poetic reflection.

The works range across coastal, northern and continental settings. The exhibition page cites paintings including ‘High Arctic 2/91, Aston Bay, Somerset Is.’ (1991), ‘N.W.T. 1/97: Beaulieu River’ (1997), ‘Rivers 1/01: Jordan River’ (2001), ‘Suffolk Village’ (1996–97) and ‘Peninsula, N.L.’ (2014). The museum describes the Arctic and northern interior works as using diffused light, soft contours and muted greys and blues, while other paintings give particular emphasis to the formal relationships between land, sea and sky.

‘Machu Picchu’ (1990–2012) provides an example of Tanabe’s treatment of remembered rather than directly observed place. The painting looks back to a 1977 journey to Machu Picchu; Tanabe revisited the experience in memory while developing the work and returned to it in 2012, when he completed it to his satisfaction. The exhibition also includes ‘Giant of Cerne Abbas’ (2001/2006), ‘Middle Kingdom 1/88: Min Sha, Dunhuang’ (1988) and other works from the artist’s collection and private and institutional holdings.

‘Vistas’ is being presented as a special exhibition accompanying ‘Takao Tanabe 100: Inside Passage’, which will be on view at the Audain Art Museum from June 13 to October 19, 2026. That separate retrospective marks Tanabe’s 100th birthday on September 16 and features more than 50 paintings spanning over six decades. It includes coastal and prairie landscapes alongside lesser-known bodies of work such as the Emperor series, hard-edge paintings and intimate river scenes. ‘Inside Passage’ is co-organized by the Audain Art Museum, the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

Tanabe, born in 1926 in Seal Cove, Prince Rupert, British Columbia, is identified by the museum as a second-generation Japanese Canadian artist. The Audain describes his practice as bringing together Eastern and Western traditions with postwar Canadian modernism. His honours include the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, the Order of Canada and the Audain Prize for the Visual Arts. The Audain Art Museum is located at 4350 Blackcomb Way in Whistler and is open Thursday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.