INSTUDIO sat down recently with Sarah Stanners, Director, Curatorial & Collections, The McMichael Canadian Art Collection and with Terry Bush, musician/songwriter and son of the late Canadian artist, Jack Bush, to discuss his father’s work and legacy.

John Hamilton Bush, better known as Jack Bush, was one of Canada’s first artists to achieve international recognition. His renowned, colourful paintings, drawings and commercial illustrations are a part of many galleries’ collections; among them, the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Tate Gallery in London, and Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Please join us in celebrating him at the 2016 Alumni of Influence Awards ceremony and reception on Saturday, November 12.

Born in Toronto in 1909, Bush began his career in advertising working in his father’s firm, Rapid Electro Type Company in Montreal. Raised in Quebec, Bush moved back to Toronto in his early twenties, where like many artists of his time, he was influenced by the Group of Seven.  While continuing to work as a commercial artist, Bush was simultaneously taking night classes at the Ontario College of Art, as it was then known. He was heavily influenced by artist and OCA instructor Charles Comfort, whose work consisted of decorative designs and areas of flat colour. The Toronto-based group ‘Painters Eleven, founded by William Ronald in 1953, became Bush’s next step in the art world as well as a driver for new audiences of his abstract painting. As one of the pioneers of abstract painting in Canada, Bush was honoured as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1976.  You can read more about Jack Bush here and view his work online.

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