Page 39 - Studio International - July August 1974

JACK 3USH:

RECENT PAINTINGS

Jack Bush was born in 1909, in Toronto, where is echoed, and therefore held in place, by the
he still lives. At the end of the fifties, and after a light to dark range of his dull ground paint.
spell as a commercial artist, he started painting The work he did in 1972 is almost
prolifically, influenced by Matisse and diagrammatic of this impulse to mark out his
American artists, notably Robert Motherwell, format with colour: three or four straight
Adolph Gottlieb, and subsequently Kenneth edged bands of purer hues float parallel to the
Noland. At the same time his art increased sides of his rollered fields. Sometimes they
in originality. almost frame his pictures. At other times they
Considering Bush's achievement over the form something like those Japanese
past decade, it came as no surprise that in propylaea where the lintel extends on both
his April show at the Zurich branch of sides beyond the posts that support it. Bush's
Emmerich's there were a couple of really lintels levitate above their posts and the
great paintings: Purple Drops and Red Shaft. grounds in his 'framed' pictures can still be
Nor did much of the work in the exhibition lag seen at the corners where a real frame would
far behind. Only two canvases looked weak : join up, so that the architectural quality of
the simplicity of the 77 x 17 inch vertical these coloured bands does not compromise
Scroll (an off-cut from the right-hand side his paintings' openness. A painting where
of the 77 inch high, 1264 inch long Gold the brushed-on colour begins to lose touch with
Across) had an initial freshness, but it turned the format, Red Pink Cross, is gentle and
frail. The picture consists of a small pink area, moody, almost to the point of looking weak.
sloping across a broken, paint-rollered ground But in the more successful paintings the
of brown tones, from nearly half way up the format-stressing can still be very subtle. The
left side. Where this pink stops near the centre placing of the colours in relation to the ground
of the canvas it is overlapped by a smaller dab can look as natural as the drift of a flock of birds
of blue. And that is all. as they fly with or across the wind.
Since he started using these rollered base Nevertheless in his current figure/ground way
coats, Bush has sometimes successfully of painting, the acceptance of the stretch of the
cantilevered a large area of ground by a tiny rollered ground, its generative primacy for the
cluster of superimposed colour. In this show final painting is crucial to the best Bushes I
lac 4 brings it off: against a vertical field of have so far seen. There is nothing tautological
broken red are played three adjacent little about this. I am not merely saying that Bush's
bands of pink, green and blue, which protrude best paintings are well composed but asserting
into the painting from the bottom edge. In the that they are well composed in a particular way,
top left corner the paler tones of the uneven a more holistic, uncomplicated way that is
ground accumulate to mark off emphatically recurrent in the best post-war American art.
Jac 4 1973 that end of the painting. A tautness results, To return to the first of the two weak
Acrylic on canvas, 54 x 24 in.
Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York added to by the common direction of, on the paintings : both axes of the format are, I
one hand, the pink, green and blue bands and, admit, rehearsed in Scroll: up and down is
on the other, the rollered ground. (In fact emphasized by the very verticality of the
Jac 4 works like a lot of Olitskis : touches of picture's 77 x 17 inch format. Across, is
colour finalizing the cropped field). Nothing marked by the slightly drooping but horizontal
like this happens in Scroll. intrusion of the purer, brushed-on colour from
Although ultimately the reasons for specific the middle left-hand side. Bush's usual
failures, like successes, are inexplicable, one muscularity is missing. The colours sit on the
can still guess what methods will tend to get ground inertly. Once more one is reminded
the best results in individual cases. In his how Bush's brushed-on colours need
current painting it is important for Bush, when inspired drawing in relation to the whole
he places his topmost, unbroken colour to format. The likelihood of this being chanced
make it emphasize, however indirectly, his on by a happy off-cut seems slim unlike, say,
chosen format. It is not, of course, the only in Jules Olitski's or Larry Poons' case where
consideration. His feeling for the colours the sheer process of applying paint bears more
themselves dictates to some extent how much of the burden of the final form. Such painters
to put down and where. But the directions he can discover the edge of their pictures at
stresses in his drawing with the colours natural breaks in the flow or spread of the
primarily celebrate the sweep of the ground and medium. Correspondingly, the elements in
the other direction of his picture. (In these work like Kenneth Noland's 'plaid' pictures
rolled ground paintings the base coat is put have such a strong common denominator that
on in only one direction.) This positioning of as much of them can be cropped off the
the colours in the format is supported in the perimeter of his pictures as he thinks fit. In
final unifying of the painting by the fact that comparison with painters like these, Bush
the tonal span of his bright brushed-on colours tends more to choose the size of his painting