Sold for: $52,250

PROVENANCE
Collection of the Artist
David Mirvish Gallery, Toronto, June 29, 1972
Acquired from the above by An Important Private Collection, Toronto, November 1972

This intimate work on paper is from a series of gouache paintings produced by Jack Bush between April and June of 1971. They are believed to be, quite simply and touchingly, references to the garden he and his wife Mabel kept at their suburban Toronto home. While an important examples of Bush’s work on paper practice, they also speak to the idea that while Bush was a fully abstract painter at this point, there could sometimes be a representation trigger to his creations. His important Sash paintings, for example, were thought to be inspired by a sash tied around the waist of a shop-window mannequin; and other motifs such as Totems, Feathers, and Handkerchiefs also gesture to these quasi-representational facets of his work. The background of this painting is an important feature, as well, as it can be seen as a part of his “mottled ground” approach, which toys with the illusions of texture and depth while maintaining an overall flat pictorial surface. Purchased from the David Mirvish Gallery just over a year after it was produced and a part of the same collection since, this elegantly balanced image speaks to multiple crucial elements of Bush’s life and work.

The above essay was provided by Heffel. This work will be included in Dr. Sarah Stanners’s forthcoming Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné.

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