The Audain Art Museum is opening "Takao Tanabe 100: Inside Passage," a landmark retrospective celebrating the 100th birthday of Canadian painter Takao Tanabe on September 16, 2026. The exhibition features over fifty works spanning six decades, including his iconic coastal and prairie landscapes as well as lesser-known series like the "White Paintings" and "Emperor" paintings. Co-organized with the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the show will travel to Ottawa and Victoria through 2027.
This retrospective matters because it honors one of Canada's most distinguished painters at a centennial milestone, highlighting Tanabe's pivotal role in shaping Canadian visual arts. He was instrumental in founding the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts and the Audain Prize for the Visual Arts, and his work represents a unique fusion of modernist abstraction and landscape tradition. The exhibition offers a rare comprehensive view of his six-decade career, underscoring his enduring influence on Canadian art.