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SATURDAY EVENING POST
March 8th, 2025
John Hamilton "Jack" Bush was born on March 20, 1909, in Toronto, Canada, and spent his youth in London, Ontario and Montreal. He was introduced to art early through his father’s commercial printing business, the Rapid Electro Type Company in Montreal, where Bush worked as a young man. In 1928 he moved back to Toronto, joining the Rapid Grip commercial art firm, and simultaneously nurtured his interest in fine art. Throughout the 1930s, Bush took night classes at the Ontario College of Art, studying under teachers like Charles Comfort and J.W. Beatty, while painting landscapes on weekends. His early artistic style was influenced by the Group of Seven and by Charles Comfort’s design-oriented approach, which encouraged flat areas of colour and decorative pattern. Like many Canadian artists of his generation, Bush had little exposure to European modernism in his formative years and initially painted in a conservative representational manner, focusing on Ontario landscapes, townscapes, figure studies, and still lifes.
Bush’s early influences instilled a strong sense of composition and “handwriting” in his art. Even in his pre-abstract works, he developed a personal motif: dynamic forms or groupings that seemed to float within his scenes. This tendency to break up space with bold shapes would later become a hallmark of his abstract style. A turning point in Bush’s style came in the late 1940s. In the aftermath of World War II, he grappled with anxiety and a desire for deeper expression, infusing some of his work with a Social Realist mood. During this time, he sought therapy with a psychiatrist who encouraged him to freely express his feelings in paint and to keep a diary, a practice Bush maintained for the last 25 years of his life (which also became very important resource for art historians). This introspection primed him to embrace new ideas in art. By 1950, Bush began yearly trips to New York City to visit galleries and museums. There, he encountered the shock of the new where Abstract Expressionism was in full swing and seeing modern abstract art firsthand energized him. He returned to Toronto inspired and, by the early 1950s, started to experiment tentatively with abstraction in his own work.
Bush spent over four decades as a commercial artist and illustrator, a parallel career that sustained him financially even as his fine art ambitions grew. Starting at age 19, he worked for his father’s Toronto printing firm and later co-founded Wookey, Bush and Winter, an advertising art company, in 1942. He was an award-winning illustrator and adept designer, producing everything from magazine illustrations to beer advertisements, and this experience gave him superb draftsmanship and an instinct for bold graphic forms.Throughout the 1930s and 1940s he exhibited regionally and was active in artist organizations like the Canadian Group of Painters and the Ontario Society of Artists. During those years Bush’s paintings were largely conventional: he zealously painted Ontario landscapes in watercolour and oil, sometimes with a Cubist flair or an atmospheric style reminiscent of American modernist Charles Burchfield. Yet, under the placid surface of a “provincial” landscape painter, Bush hungered for a more contemporary mode of expression.
After his eye-opening New York visits, Bush felt acutely the cultural detachment of Canadian art from the international scene. He later remarked that the Canadian urge to develop a distinctive “national art” was misplaced and would not help artists “get off the ground” internationally, and this dissatisfaction catalysed action. In 1953, Bush joined forces with ten other Toronto painters who were also experimenting with abstraction. They organized a radical group exhibition of their avant-garde work and whimsically called themselves Painters Eleven. As Bush recalled, “That shook Toronto... It upset everybody – the critics, the older artists – everybody”. Indeed, the Painters Eleven show of 1954 was a seismic event in the conservative Canadian art world, announcing that post-war abstraction had arrived.
Within Painters Eleven (active 1954–1960), Bush continued to develop his abstract language. His early forays into abstraction were often semi-abstract, starting from landscape or still-life subjects and then simplifying forms. Many of these works featured hovering amorphous shapes and vigorous brushwork, reflecting the influence of the New York school. Bush was essentially translating the lessons of Abstract Expressionism into a Canadian context, albeit through his own filter. He drew inspiration from leaders of the movement: he admired the freedom of Jackson Pollock’s drip compositions and the emotive power of Mark Rothko’s colour fields, among others. Yet Bush struggled initially to find his signature approach. A crucial intervention came in 1957, when well-known American art critic Clement Greenberg, the main proponent of Abstract Expressionism visited Toronto, met Bush and visited his studio. At first Greenberg was not entirely impressed by Bush’s oil paintings, finding them heavy, but he was struck by the simplicity and clarity of Bush’s small watercolour sketches. Greenberg astutely advised Bush to try translating the fresh, thinly applied look of his watercolours into his large oil canvases. In other words, he urged Bush to “seek in his oil painting the thinness and clarity of colour and the simplicity” that characterized his works on paper. This advice proved prophetic. Bush heeded the critique, began diluting his oil paint with turpentine to create washes of pure colour, and produced a series of large, open compositions that were far more confident and modern in effect.He later credited this 1957 encounter as a turning point – from then on, he “never looked back” in his pursuit of full abstraction.
Bush’s development did not occur in isolation; it was very much in dialogue with the dominant art of his era. Through the 1950s, he engaged deeply with American Abstract Expressionism, absorbing its influences yet gradually forging his own path. Bush made annual pilgrimages to New York in the late 1940s and ’50s to see the latest art. These trips exposed him to cutting-edge painters like Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Helen Frankenthaler, whose bold forms and spontaneous techniques left a strong impression. The impact of New York’s art galvanized Bush “on another course” that would come to define him as a painter.
However, while Bush was certainly inspired by the freedom of American abstraction, his work also diverged in significant ways. Notably, Bush was a generation younger than the first-wave New York School painters, and he arrived at abstraction slightly later, with a different temperament. Unlike the often angst-ridden, turbulent feel of classic Abstract Expressionism, Bush’s paintings increasingly projected a sense of joie de vivre and lyrical optimism. He was profoundly inspired by Henri Matisse’s joyous use of colour and by the second-wave abstract painters Frankenthaler and Morris Louis, who pioneered staining techniques to create luminous colour fields. Bush himself acknowledged that he aimed to encapsulate “joyful yet emotional feelings” in his paintings, even comparing their effect to jazz music – improvisational, upbeat, and deeply felt.
Greenberg became a friend and advocate, introducing Bush to fellow artists and including him in major exhibitions. Bush made a decisive entry onto the international stage in the early 1960s. He had his first solo exhibition in New York City in 1962, on Madison Avenue, which marked the beginning of serious attention from American critics and collectors. In 1964 Greenberg curated “Post-Painterly Abstraction” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a landmark show defining the next step beyond Abstract Expressionism. Bush’s work was featured alongside that of Frankenthaler, Louis, and other U.S. painters in this exhibit. signalling that he was fully part of the North American vanguard. Bush’s style by then ran parallel to the Americans often labelled Colour Field painters, artists like Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Jules Olitski who favoured large areas of poured or stained colour over aggressive brushwork. Like them, Bush embraced thinned paints and staining: he would often apply oil paint in diluted washes on raw canvas (a technique he eventually executed with acrylics) to achieve a flat, luminous surface. In doing so, he moved away from thick impasto or violent gestures, distinguishing his approach from the more visceral side of Abstract Expressionism.
Despite these parallels, Bush retained a certain individuality. His years in commercial art had given him a refined sense of design and a willingness to plan his compositions with sketches (habits somewhat at odds with the ultra-spontaneous mythos of New York abstraction). Bush would frequently work out ideas on paper before committing them to a large canvas, marrying intuition with careful composition. Moreover, Bush’s Canadian context meant he never fully adopted the heroic scale or existential drama of painters like Pollock. Instead, his canvases often have an intimate, whimsical quality, a reflection of his own personality and inspirations. Clement Greenberg, who by the 1960s championed Bush as one of the great painters of the era, praised him as a “supreme colourist”. Indeed, if the New York painters taught Bush freedom, one could say Bush responded by pushing colour to new heights of purity and expressiveness. He once quipped to Kenneth Noland, “What I’d really like to do is hit Matisse’s ball out of the park.” Noland replied encouragingly, “Go ahead, Matisse won’t mind at all.” This friendly exchange speaks volumes: Bush saw himself in conversation with Matisse and the great colourists, aiming to equal their mastery. By the early 1960s, Bush had effectively bridged Canadian painting with the advances of American Abstract Expressionism, while carving out a niche that was distinctly his own.
Jack Bush’s years of greatest productivity and acclaim spanned roughly from 1961 until his death in 1977, with many landmark works and shows during that time. Bush became one of the foremost artists of Colour Field painting in the 1960s. He refined his palette and technique, so that bright, unmodulated hues and bold, simplified shapes occupied the canvas. Bush learned to “simplify his composition by using an all-over coverage of thinly applied bright colours”, often inspired by the clarity of his watercolour sketches. His mature works dispense with obvious subject matter altogether, no more hints of barns or figures, focusing instead on the interplay of colours themselves. As Bush explained, the challenge for the viewer was “not to have the red look like a side of a barn but to let it be the red for its own sake”. In other words, colour became the primary subject of his art, carrying emotional weight without needing to represent something else.
By 1961, Bush was entering what art historians consider his mature period of abstraction. He began working in distinct series, each exploring a particular arrangement of forms and colours. One of the first was the “Thrust” series of the early 1960s, in which dynamically placed blocks of colour seem to push in from the canvas edges (as in Pink on Red (Thrust) above). He also painted “Flag” motifs, abstract designs loosely inspired by the patterns and colours of flags. As the decade progressed, Bush hit a confident stride often termed his Apollonian phase (c. 1963–68), characterized by balanced compositions and “stunning colour”.
In 1964, Jack Bush made the audacious decision to forgo solo exhibitions in Toronto, concerned that remaining too entrenched in the Canadian art scene might cement a "provincial" label in the eyes of the broader art world. Instead, he turned his focus outward, strategically building his reputation on the international stage. This gamble paid off handsomely: by 1966, Bush was represented by prestigious galleries in major art capitals, including the André Emmerich Gallery in New York, the Nicholas Wilder Gallery in Los Angeles, and the Waddington Galleries in London. His works sold consistently to prominent collectors and institutions, solidifying his status as a significant figure in contemporary art. In 1967, Bush's rising prominence was further affirmed when he was chosen, alongside artist Jacques Hurtubise, to represent Canada at the São Paulo Bienal in Brazil—a notable distinction. That same year, feeling that his time in the “Big Leagues” had validated his standing, Bush returned to the Canadian scene with renewed confidence, exhibiting at the David Mirvish Gallery, which, at the time, represented only two Canadian artists: Robert Murray and Jack Bush himself.
In these years he produced series like the “Fishtails,” “Sash,” “Stack,” and “Fringe” paintings. The Fringe works, for example, feature bands of different colours arrayed along one edge of an otherwise monochromatic canvas, a format Bush used to great effect. Such compositions embody Colour Field ideals yet carry Bush’s personal imprint. Bush’s Sash paintings, on the other hand, present a single tall column of stripes with a “cinched” band, reminiscent of a kilt or dress sash, suggesting how he drew playful analogies between abstract shapes and everyday visuals.
Technically, Bush was moving with the times. In March 1966 he made a permanent switch from oil paint to acrylics, a medium that offered more intense hues and faster drying. This change allowed him to achieve the flat, crisp expanses of colour that oils (which tended to soak and dull on raw canvas) sometimes couldn’t. It also enabled him to work on a larger scale with ease. By the late 1960s, Bush was creating impressively large canvases filled with “bold forms and stunning colour”. His friendship with Greenberg also brought him into close contact with artists like Noland and Olitski, and with sculptor Anthony Caro, who all shared ideas in this period. Bush travelled in these circles and exhibited alongside these American peers, being fully recognized as part of the Colour Field movement. Roald Nasgaard, prominent Canadian curator and scholar, notes that Bush “re-defined abstract painting and played a leading role in the Colour Field movement.” Among his Colour Field colleagues, Bush’s work stood out for its exuberance and approachability.
Jack Bush enjoyed a major career capstone in 1976 when the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) organized a large-scale retrospective of his work. This exhibition toured across Canada, allowing a wide public to appreciate the full trajectory of his art. In the same year, 1976, Jack Bush was honoured by being made an Officer of the Order of Canada, recognizing his outstanding contribution to Canadian culture. Sadly, Bush died shortly thereafter on January 24, 1977, at age 67, of a heart attack. Yet even in his final year he remained prolific, painting vibrant works like Come Along (1976) while the retrospective was traveling. By the end of 1976, Bush had achieved the kind of recognition few Canadian artists of his generation could claim: critical acclaim at home and abroad, commercial success, and a secure place in art history.
Personal Life and Philosophy
In contrast to the often-turbulent lives of some New York Abstract Expressionists, Jack Bush led a relatively grounded personal life, which in turn nourished his art. He married Mabel Teakle in 1934 and remained a devoted husband for over four decades, the couple raised three sons in Toronto (Terry, Charlie, and Jack Jr.), and family was a constant source of support and inspiration. Bush’s home life was closely entwined with his work, literally so in the early years: his primary painting space for much of his career was a small one-room studio in his family’s North Toronto home. There, with a picture window facing the front yard, Bush would tack unstretched canvases to the wall to paint. His children sometimes helped him roll out and prepare canvases, and his wife Mabel often gave frank, insightful critiques as works were in progress. This familial, supportive environment grounded Bush and perhaps kept his art from ever drifting into cold intellectualism; there was always a human warmth nearby.
One of Bush’s great loves, beyond painting, was music. His studio was never silent, he kept a record player or radio on, and his most constant companion while working was music, especially jazz and classical records. He often said that music helped him get “in the groove” of painting, and indeed he drew analogies between the two art forms. Many of Bush’s paintings carry musical titles or references. He was an avid fan of jazz legend Count Basie and titled a 1976 canvas Basie Blues, directly after a jazz piece. He also loved classical composers like Debussy, for instance, his 1977 painting Passepied takes its name from a movement in a Debussy suite. These titles were not arbitrary, they signal that Bush often painted with a particular song or melody in mind. This synesthetic approach, translating sound into colour and rhythm on canvas, is vividly felt in works like Spinning Yellow (where the arcs of colour resemble notes emanating from a central chord). For Bush, music provided not just a backdrop but a wellspring of inspiration and a model for improvisation within structure, much like his paintings which balance spontaneous gestures with compositional harmony.
Jack Bush was an instinctive painter more than an intellectual theorist. He famously said he painted “from the belly”, meaning he trusted gut feeling over cerebral analysis. In a 1977 interview (recorded shortly before his death for an NFB documentary), Bush described how images or ideas would strike him in daily life and then morph into abstract compositions. “I don’t look for anything. It comes to me,” he explained. “I may be walking along a road and I see a mark on the road; it looks interesting, so I try it out as a painting. Or looking at some flowers in the garden – how can I get the feel of those colours, the nice smell and everything? … I’m not painting flowers. I’m painting the essence, the feeling to me only… Then I forget the flowers and make a good painting of it if I can.” This reveals Bush’s creative philosophy: he sought to capture the essence of experiences (a visual impression, a mood, a musical sound) in pure form, divorced from their literal source. His goal was that the viewer, too, would feel that original spark, not by recognizing a depicted object, but by resonating with the colours and composition on the canvas. Bush was aware that this was a leap for the audience. It requires, as he said, “the art loving public to take a hard step… to let [a painting] be the red for its own sake… how it exists in the environment of that canvas”. But he had faith that if the painting was good, the emotional communication would happen. In this sense, Bush’s personal belief was about honesty to one’s feeling and experience, and confidence that purity of expression in art, much like a pure musical note, can evoke strong responses without need for narrative or figurative crutches.
Bush was known as a generous, affable man, somewhat shy by nature but deeply friendly. He maintained close friendships with many in the art community. His relationship with Clement Greenberg was not just artist-to-critic, they were personal friends who corresponded and visited often (Greenberg continued to drop into Bush’s Toronto studio for candid critiques well into the 1970s). Bush also befriended younger artists. In 1968, after retiring from commercial art to paint full-time, he finally rented a large off-site studio in Toronto, where he welcomed several studio assistants and fellow artists into his process. Bush was happy to advise and encourage emerging artists, because he understood the importance of community. He also contributed to the arts community by serving on organizational boards and juries, and by simply being a passionate advocate for modern art in Canada. All of this reflects a personal philosophy of openness: to new ideas, to other people, and to the pleasures of life. His love of music, his love of colour, and his love of family all merged into a painting practice that celebrated life’s positive energies.
Jack Bush once said that he wanted the viewer not necessarily to see what he saw, but to “feel what he felt” when creating a painting. Decades later, standing in front of a Jack Bush canvas, one indeed feels a direct connection to the artist’s sensibility, a mix of exuberance, sensitivity, and wit. This emotional accessibility, combined with formal sophistication, makes his work deeply engaging to both seasoned art connoisseurs and casual viewers. It is no exaggeration to call Jack Bush a giant of Canadian art: he was a founding figure in the country’s modernist movement and one of its first artists to achieve true international stature.
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Kate Taylor for her beautifully written review of our Jack Bush exhibition in the weekend print edition of The Globe and Mail. Her inspired words help us share the magic of art with a broader audience.
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Contact: Farzina Coladon