This problem is related to bug 65109, i.e. non-existence of XftConfig file.

I have made the following changes to canvas.c to get it to run on SOlaris.

Index: canvas.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/gnome/libgnomecanvas/demos/canvas.c,v
retrieving revision 1.37
diff -u -p -r1.37 canvas.c
--- canvas.c	2001/12/30 18:54:39	1.37
+++ canvas.c	2002/01/25 10:08:51
@@ -30,12 +30,16 @@ create_canvas (void)
 	gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (app), notebook);
 
 	gtk_notebook_append_page (GTK_NOTEBOOK (notebook),
create_canvas_primitives (0), gtk_label_new ("Primitives"));
+#if 0
     	gtk_notebook_append_page (GTK_NOTEBOOK (notebook),
create_canvas_primitives (1), gtk_label_new ("Antialias"));  
+#endif
 	gtk_notebook_append_page (GTK_NOTEBOOK (notebook),
create_canvas_arrowhead (), gtk_label_new ("Arrowhead"));
 	gtk_notebook_append_page (GTK_NOTEBOOK (notebook), create_canvas_fifteen
(), gtk_label_new ("Fifteen"));
 	gtk_notebook_append_page (GTK_NOTEBOOK (notebook), create_canvas_features
(), gtk_label_new ("Features"));
 	gtk_notebook_append_page (GTK_NOTEBOOK (notebook),
create_canvas_rich_text (), gtk_label_new ("Rich Text"));
+#if 0
 	gtk_notebook_append_page (GTK_NOTEBOOK (notebook),
create_canvas_bezier_curve (), gtk_label_new ("Bezier Curve"));
+#endif
 
 	gtk_widget_show (app);
 }