Sold for: $5,938

PROVENANCE
Estate of the Artist
Thielsen Gallery, London
Private Collection, Ontario

The intensity present in this vigorous oil sketch by Jack Bush speaks the artistic transformations at play within his practice in this period. Bush was from the generation of Ontario artists immediately following the Group of Seven, and he often worked in their en plein air mode, painting on standard sized sketch box boards. He added, though, a slightly darker, more expressionist edge to that style, clearly on display here. The searching, almost drastic gestures and moody colour choices also suggest a less lyrical and more existential outlook, further separating him from the overall style of his predecessors. In the years immediately following, Bush’s approach would give way to forays into an even more intuitive, less rational process of painting, eventually leading to the fully abstract work for which he is so celebrated today. Works such as this one, however, are extremely valuable evidence of the gradual and arduous process of artistic revelation at the heart of the journey of every important artist.

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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