Bush, Jack Hamilton

  • From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: See full biography at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Bush
  • Wiki Biography:
    • Jack Hamilton Bush OC RCA (March 20, 1909 – January 24, 1977) was a Canadian abstract painter. A member of Painters Eleven, his paintings are associated with the Color Field movement and Post-painterly Abstraction. Inspired by Henri Matisse and American abstract expressionist painters such as Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis, Bush encapsulated joyful yet emotional feelings in his vibrant paintings, comparing them to jazz music. Clement Greenberg described him as a “supreme colorist”, along with Kenneth Noland in 1984.
    • Bush was born in Toronto, Ontario. As a young man, he attended the Royal Canadian Academy school in Montreal, Quebec, where he studied with Adam Sheriff Scott and Edmond Dyonnet.
    • Bush developed his work and approach to abstraction through the 1950s. He was a member of Painters Eleven, an influential group founded by William Ronald in 1954 to promote abstract painting in Canada and was soon encouraged in his art by the American art critic Clement Greenberg. Critical at first, Greenberg became a mentor to Bush and encouraged him to refine his palette, technique, and approach. He told Bush to seek in his oil painting the thinness and clarity of colour and the simplicity of his works on paper. As a result of Greenberg’s guidance, Bush became closely tied with Color Field Painting and Lyrical Astraction. Bush’s work is based on an abstract record of his perception. Rather than expecting the audience to recognize his subject or experience the use of forms in his paintings, he shares the emotion of that experience by slabs and streaks of colour.
    • Bush permanently switched from using oil paint which he had used for forty years, thinned with turpentine in his large abstract work to allow the pigment to be absorbed by the unprimed canvas, to water–based acrylic paints in March 1966. He represented Canada at the 1967 São Paulo Art Biennial, and in 1976 the Art Gallery of Ontario toured a large retrospective of his work. He died in Toronto at the age of 67 on 24 January 1977. In 1979, two years later, the National Film Board of Canadareleased a one-hour documentary Jack Bush, directed by Murray Battle.
  • Second Great Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1080
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