Bridge Passage, 1975

The Artist Estate of Jack Bush, 1975–1993 Salander O'Reilly Galleries, California Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas Gallery One, Toronto, circa 1993 Private Collection, Toronto, May 1993–April 2009 Miriam Shiell Fine Art, Toronto, 2009 Private Collection, Toronto

“Jack Bush: A Retrospective”, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; travelling to the Vancouver Art Gallery; Edmonton Art Gallery; Musée d’art contemporain, Montreal; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 17 September 1976–31 July 1977, no. 53 “Jack Bush”, Salander O’Reilly Galleries, Beverly Hills, California, 4 September 1991–3 October 1991, no. 17 “Jack Bush: On View”, Miriam Shiell Fine Art, Toronto, 2022

Terry Fenton, “Jack Bush: A Retrospective”, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1976, no. 53, unpaginated, reproduced Murray Battle,” Jack Bush”, National Film Board of Canada [film], 1979 “Jack Bush: On View”, Miriam Shiell Fine Art, 2022, unpaginated, reproduced

In 1976, the Art Gallery of Ontario organized a major Jack Bush retrospective exhibition which toured across the country, eventually closing in Ottawa, at the National Gallery of Canada in the summer of 1977. Notably, all paintings in the exhibition were abstract, dating from 1958 to 1975. Bridge Passage was included and featured as the earliest painting from Bush’s musical series in the show, preceded only by paintings from the artist’s Feather series. Curated in this way, “Bridge Passage” lived up to its title, appearing as a pivotal transition piece between two distinct series. “Bridge Passage’s” connection to the Feather paintings is seen in the groundwork, where the paint has been applied in short swipes, like an overcast sky of purple cloud cover. The Feather paintings were the first series of paintings to have sponged–on grounds. On the other hand, “Bridge Passage’s” key marker as a musical or lyrical type painting is found in the short, brightly–coloured strokes that appear to hover muted mauve ground as two distinct groups at opposite ends of the picture: seven stacked vertically on the left side and six descending to the bottom right quadrant of the canvas. The canvas also represents a departure for the artist: amid this completely abstract composition, which celebrates the non–objective merits of art and music, is a gesture – a hand–drawn line in chalk. Between May 1974 and May 1976, only three other paintings carry such an interruption: “Cirr” exhibits squiggly lines and “Bas Continuo #1” and “#2” involve short straight lines in chalk. Bush called the purple chalk gesture at the centre of “Bridge Passage” a “parabola stroke” and when he made the mark, he knew it was a risk. He was showing his hand – reminding the viewer of the source of illusion and virtuosity, which were qualities of art that he no longer pursued as an abstract painter. For so many years, Bush had distilled his paintings to the point of being pure expressions of colour, but with one bold move, he makes drawing the focus of his picture, and he makes it in the very material that the earliest masters of painting began with – coloured chalk. Despite being a distinct moment of drawing, this curved line in Bridge Passage is not symbolic; it does not represent a thing or an idea, but instead serves, like a bridge passage in music, to link one section to another. This drawing is purposeful but not representational. Tracing this gesture in chalk, our eye is carried from one set of colour bars to the next. It simply acts to make a smooth transition across the composition which would otherwise be abrupt, and perhaps imply too much through negative space. The paradoxical thing about a great Jack Bush painting is that the composition really works best, and stands the test of time, when there is a little something off about it; when things aren’t quite right, or perfect. If a painting works too well, it may be briefly satisfying, but it will not tug at us or motivate us to ask – why? In his contribution to the exhibition catalogue for “Jack Bush: A Retrospective” (1976), the artist wrote about a piece of advice from the art critic Clement Greenberg that stuck with him over the years: “If it scares you – good – you’ll know you are onto something that is your true self...” “Bridge Passage” captures an authentic moment, a motion to create without holding back, and this risk produced a beautiful reward. This painting will be included in Dr. Stanners’ forthcoming “Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné”. We extend our thanks to Dr. Sarah Stanners for contributing the preceding essay. Sarah is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto’s Department of Art History while writing the forthcoming “Jack Bush Catalogue Raisonné”. From 2015 to 2018 she was the Chief Curator of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Co-Curator of the 2014/2015 national travelling exhibition, “Jack Bush”, Co-Author of the resulting 2014 exhibition catalogue (”Jack Bush”) and guest curator and author for “Jack Bush: In Studio”, organized by the Esker Foundation in Calgary.over the