Jack Bush grew up in Montreal where he worked concurrently as an apprentice in the Art Department of a local business and training in painting at night school. He continued to work for the same company while studying nights at Ontario School of Art. In 1934, he married (her name was Mabel) and they had three sons. During the years 1953 to 1960, with several others, Jack Bush co-founded the Painters Eleven.
In Ontario, Jack Bush was a late convert to fine art from the commercial field of advertising and illustration. His painting, though far from naive, was like much of his contemporaries’ work. His indoctrination came from seeing works by John Marin and Lyonel Feininger first hand. His first trip to New York in 1952 found uncertainty regarding his direction deepening and he began to contribute to abstract art exhibitions.
1957 marked for Jack Bush a stimulating point; the acceptance of the Canadian artists along with the Americans bolstered Jack Bush’s ambition and self-direction. He became dedicated to the form of large canvases on which broad, cleanly defined areas of high-keyed color were placed against a pure background. Five years later he was painting in the same style. Jack Bush had matured in the art territory called Abstract Expressionism.
Source includes:
G.S.Whittet in Contemporary Artists
Compiled and written by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher of Laguna Woods, California.
Biography from the Archives of AskART.