This summer, the McMaster Museum of Art proudly presents an exhibition of recently acquired works of art by Ann Kipling and Takao Tanabe, on view in our Levy Gallery, from May 18 – August 5, 2017.

This exhibition is the first public presentation of fifteen Ann Kipling drawings and etchings, donated by Toronto collector Christopher Varley in 2014, and six Takao Tanabe works on paper, donated by the artist in 2015.

Kipling (Canadian b. 1934) and Tanabe (Canadian b. 1926) are senior British Columbia-based artists who have made a substantial contribution to the visual languages in Canada. Both are represented in public collections across Canada; these are the first works by either to enter McMaster’s collection.

The Ann Kipling works represent a mini-retrospective of her work, from 1964 to 2004, with an emphasis on her extended communion with the lower foothills of Falkland B.C., where she has lived since 1973. Kipling received the Audain Prize for lifetime achivement in 2004, and an honorary doctorate from Emily Carr University in 2008. Varley has had a long association with Kipling that began with his curatorial work at the Vancouver Art Gallery in the 1970s.

The works by Takao Tanabe, which were included in the Tanabe retrospective at the Museum in 2012, represent an arc of his practice, from Japanese period sumi and watercolour in 1960, to a large calligraphic-gestural acrylic on paper from 2006. Tanabe is a recipient of the Order of Canada, and in 2003, a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.