JACK HAMILTON BUSH, O.S.A., A.R.C.A.
ATTACCA
signed, titled and dated “June 1975” on the reverse
68 1/4 ins x 40 3/4 ins; 170.6 cms x 101.9 cms
November 22, 2010
Estimate $50,000-$70,000
Realised: $165,200
Bush’s career is an exceptional one for both its unique development and its duration. Introduced to abstraction in the 1950s, he would continue to explore this path for the remaining two decades of his life. Kramer notes that Bush’s turn toward colour field painting “released something fundamental in his sensibility as a painter…It was in the American painters of the colour field school that Bush found the impetus he needed to achieve that release.” His much sought-after acrylic paintings of the 1970s are literally drawn with colour. In Attacca, we see Bush’s celebrated juxtaposition of meticulously defined colour areas with textured, open ground.
In an article published seven years following Bush’s death, Clement Greenberg recalled: “…if there was ever an artist who put the whole of himself into his art it was Jack Bush.”
© Estate of Jack Hamilton Bush/SODRAC 2010
Literature:
Clement Greenberg (contributor), “Jack Bush”, Canadian Art, Fall, 1984, page 70.
Hilton Kramer, “A garden for the eye: The paintings of Jack Bush”, artscanada 37 no.3, December, 1980 -January, 1981, pages 12-17.
Canadian Fine Art
Waddington’s has been a major force in the Canadian art market for over five decades, beginning with our first auction of Canadian Fine Art held at the Queen Elizabeth Building at the CNE in 1967. Since then we have offered countless important and major Canadian works of art, set record prices and are regarded as the source for buying and selling exceptional Canadian Art.