Vendu pour : $3,438

PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the Artist by Robert Reid, Vancouver

Please note: these works are unframed. The image size of each work is 7 3/4 x 4 1/2 in. The sheet size of each work is 11 1/2 x 8 in.

These five felt pen and graphite drawings are designs Takao Tanabe produced in 1969 for consideration as designs for stamps to be used by Canada Post to commemorate the 1970 Osaka World’s Fair.

In Tanabe’s teenage years during the Second World War, he was detained with his family in a Japanese internment camp in central British Columbia. A quarter of a century after the end of the war in which Japan was left devastated, the 1970 Osaka Expo was a symbolic re-opening up of Japan to the world. Tanabe was was one of Canada’s foremost artists of Japanese heritage, and the selection of his designs would have been a considered choice, not only for the symbolic power the decision would have held, but also based on the strength of his colour and design. Unfortunately, Tanabe’s designs were not chosen.

The Canadian pavilion was designed by renowned Vancouver architect Arthur Erickson. In honour of the host nation, placed in the middle of the pavilion were large rotating “spinners” reminiscent of Japanese paper umbrellas. The graphics for these were designed by Vancouver legend Gordon Smith, a contemporary of Tanabe’s, whose use of colourful hard-edged abstraction complements the design elements in Tanabe’s drawings.

The last image shows all five rejected stamp designs together, with the stamps eventually chosen by Canada Post underneath them.

These works were given by Tanabe to the consignor, Robert Reid, from whom he learned the craft of typography and print design. In 1952 Tanabe arrived back in Vancouver from Winnipeg and was having lunch with Joe Plaskett, who needed an advertisement printed for an exhibition. They ended up at Reid’s studio on West Pender, where Tanabe was so amazed watching the printing process that he asked Reid if he could have a job working at his studio. The two maintained a friendship over the years, and these works were eventually gifted to Robert for his collection.

In 2007, the Alcuin society of Canada created the Robert R. Reid award to recognize lifetime achievement or extraordinary contributions to the Book Arts in Canada, of which Reid was the inaugural recipient. In 2010, Reid published a book titled Takao Tanabe: Sometime Printer, examining Tanabe’s printed design work through his career.

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