creative forces

Blog # 42…February 2015

 

I’m not often conscious of being proud of things Canadian but every time I visit the National Gallery in Ottawa I feel my chest swell and I get a bit taller.  It’s so enormously impressive as a structure, never mind what’s on display  inside.

With the current main attraction, we (and art history) owe a debt to the psychiatric profession for the work of Jack Bush.  Spending four decades as a highly skilled  commercial artist, he was also moving in the vanguard of abstract painting. His style and his life is  summed up by one of the headings at the show…”He had the soul of a rebel with the habits of a conformist.”                                   
 This conflict plagued Bush for most of his life.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

photo Craig Boyko

I'm  a traditionalist in my taste - a lover of the Impressionists -  and it’s a stretch for me to relate to abstract art. My interest in the backstory for Bush’s life and how it informed and influenced his work  caught my attention though and nudged me up a level in  appreciation. His painterly skill  is so evident and undeniable and there’s no “I could have done that,”   that occasionally accompanies a black line  across a canvas.     

Hard to choose a favourite but Pinched Orange is high on my list.                                             

Magazine illustration

Yesterday

Bush battled extreme anxiety throughout his life and the  sessions with his longtime therapist are recalled in carefully kept journals.   Despite  a successful career as an illustrator,   he struggled constantly to reconcile the three worlds - home, work and art -  he felt were pulling him apart.  He felt he kept advancing and retreating from his painting and during the early years titles like Panic, Tangled and Weary, reflected his inner anguish.  He began psychotherapy in 1947 and a major breakthrough started to occur when his psychiatrist,  Allan Walters, recommended that he start painting in a looser more raw style, breaking out of the restraints of his day job as a commercial illustrator.  Although he was always recognized as a highly competent and original artist, something was keeping him from realizing the full power of his talent

Following Walters’advice, he began to create large impressive canvasses which are prominently featured in the National Gallery show.  There’s also an extensive look at early portraits and a generous sampling of illustrations for magazine stories, childrens’ books and advertisments.  It’s sometimes difficult to imagine that the same artist created such varied and remarkably distinct pieces.

In 1968 he left the world of Molson’s Export, Philishave, billboards  and  magazines to paint full time.  His  colour field paintings  prompted words of encouragement from critic Clement Greenberg who told him, “You haven’t yet realized there’s nobody on earth, including me, who knows more about painting than you do. Your colour is going to town.”  

The story has a happy ending, in 1973, Bush wrote in his diary,"What a wonderful life I've had."

Before he died in January 1977 recognition came: he was chosen to represent Canada at the biennale in Brazil  in 1967, inducted into the Order of Canada and had a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario. He realized at last that  his shows did what he longed for…they went “Pow, pow, pow”

So many people in all fields die without sensing the appreciation people have for them and their work, I was warmed by the peace and satisfaction he felt at the end of his life…we should all be so lucky.