inscribed "1.30" lower right; signed, titled, dated "September 1970" and inscribed "Toronto", "gouache" and "A4723" on the reverse; catalogue raisonné no. 2.122.1970.46
29.75 × 22.25 in (75.6 × 56.5 cm) (sheet)
(including Buyer's Premium)
The Artist
Waddington Galleries, London, 1970
Waddington Galleries, Montreal, October 1974
Private Collection, Montreal
Private Collection, Ontario
Sarah Stanners, Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 3, 1966-1971, Toronto, 2024, listed with a sketch on page 414, no. 2.122.1970.46
This painting may be abstract but every self-respecting Canadian should know what Jack Bush had in mind by reading its title: Face Off. While the timing of the painting’s execution, in September, is a little too early for the NHL season, there was a pre-season game between the Maple Leafs and Canadiens in Toronto on 30 September 1970—the red vs. blue rivalry did indeed face off and this exhibition game ended in a 4-3 win for Montreal’s team.
Bush was born in Toronto and spent his entire professional life in Ontario’s capital city, but Montreal had been home to the artist during his youth, from about the age of seven to nineteen, when he finished an apprenticeship in commercial illustration at Grip’s Montreal outfit, where Bush’s father, Charles Bush, was the manager.
Grip—which was the leading commercial art firm in the country—also had an office in Toronto, which Bush transferred to in 1928. Considering Bush’s 41 years-long career in the business of advertising arts, it is obvious with strikingly graphic paintings such as this that Bush’s prowess for composition, colour, and visual impact shaped his fine art output in powerful ways. Here, in gouache, the two solitudes face off, red against blue–blue against red, but by the hand of a Toronto-born Montrealer, the balance is clear, and beautiful.
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 and produced Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné (2024). 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 (2016), organized by the Esker Foundation in Calgary.
