Jack Hamilton Bush: Blue-Green Thrust

May 12, 2025 By: Liz Edwards

View all

Blue-Green Thrust: The earliest instance of what will come to be called Bush’s Thrust series

*Lot 320 – Jack Hamilton Bush, OSA, ARCA (1909-1977), Canadian*
*BLUE-GREEN THRUST, 1959 © Estate of Jack Bush / CARCC Ottawa 2025, [STANNERS: 1.147.1959.353] oil and black crayon on canvas; signed and dated “59”; 32 x 71.25 in — 81.3 x 181 cm*
*Estimate: $80,000—120,000*

Blue-Green Thrust, painted in May 1959, marks a shift in Jack Bush’s practice away from a short-lived exploration of American Abstract Impressionist ideas and toward a “stripped-down abstraction” that we see fully matured throughout the 1960s and beyond.[1]

Bush met Clement Greenberg in 1957 when the famed American art critic visited Toronto—the beginning of a sustained professional mentorship and genuine friendship. Already by 1959 they were in full dialogue and Greenberg’s counsel becomes evident in Bush’s work at this time.

Sarah Stanners writes: “…Bush took the advice he had received from Clement Greenberg when he painted this picture. In a letter dated 3 March 1959, which Bush transcribed in his diary, Greenberg had suggested that Bush should pursue more “openness” in his compositions and let the unprimed canvas act as paint. Bush did just this and only sized this canvas. He therefore allowed the raw colour of the canvas to show through and form the central thrusting shape.”[2]

The earliest instance of what will come to be called the Thrust series, Blue-Green Thrust also demonstrates Bush’s interest in colour and structured composition. Bush went on to create over two dozen paintings from this series throughout the early 1960s and they represent his first “sustained concentration of a single abstract picture type with many variations.”[3]

[1] Karen Wilkin, “Jack Bush: His Imagery” in Jack Bush, (New York: Hudson Hills Press), 161.
[2] Sarah Stanners, Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné Vol. 2 (Toronto: David Mirvish Books in partnership with Coach House Press, 2024), 179.
[3] Marc Mayer, “A Double Life” in Marc Mayer and Sarah Stanners, Jack Bush (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2014), 22.

We are delighted to offer this work as lot 320 in our spring 2025 Canadian & International Fine Art auction, alongside lot 319, Solo Soprano #1.

About the Auction

Our major spring auction of Canadian and International Fine Art features an exceptional collection of important works by noted Canadian and international artists including Frederick Banting, Jack Bush, Clarence Gagnon, William Kurelek, Jean Paul Lemieux, J.W. Morrice, William Perehudoff, Takao Tanabe, Bernard Buffet, Jean Dufy, Francisco Zúñiga, Larry Poons, Jules Olitski, and many more.

The auction is offered online May 8 – 29, 2025.

Previews at our Toronto gallery located at 100 Broadview Avenue, are available:

Wednesday, May 21 from 10 am to 7 pm
Thursday, May 22 from 10 am to 5 pm
Friday, May 23 from 10 am to 5 pm
Saturday, May 24 from 12 pm to 4 pm
Sunday, May 25 from 12 pm to 4 pm
Monday, May 26 from 10 am to 5 pm
Tuesday, May 27 from 10 am to 5 pm
Wednesday, May 28 from 10 am to 5 pm
Thursday, May 29 from 10 am to 12 pm

Or by appointment.

You must be registered to bid in this auction. Please register here.