Yellow Bikini, 1971

The Artist David Mirvish Gallery, Toronto, June 1971 Mr. C.E. O'Beay, January 1972 Albright-Knox Members Gallery, Buffalo Private Collection

Sarah Stanners, "Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 3, 1996-1971", Toronto, 2024, reproduced page 481, no. 2.140.191.28

Sometimes, a detail in a painting stands out in a way that you just can’t unsee. I’m not sure if "Yellow Bikini" came about by chance–perhaps the artist was freely painting abstract shapes and happened to notice one resembling a bikini bottom–or if it was a case of life influencing art, as often happened with Bush. He once admitted to "pinching" a colour from his wife’s dress, and he frequently recounted how a mannequin’s outfit in a storefront inspired the shapes in his "Sash" paintings. Often an artist’s source of inspiration is not that complicated, and that’s what makes the resulting image so powerful. A simple online search of “yellow bikini” and the year of the painting’s execution, 1971, produces a powerful image: none other than the impossibly beautiful Raquel Welch posing in a yellow bikini, captured by the British photographer Terry O’Neill, and published that year as a life-sized poster print (60 x 24 inches). This is not the only image of Welch in a yellow two-piece swimsuit; this bright swimwear set was a standard for the American actress throughout the 1960s. Within the context of the artist’s oeuvre, "Yellow Bikini" was painted directly after a series of eleven gouache paintings celebrating springtime’s riot of blossoms, including apple blossoms, cherry blossoms, and forsythia. Comparing these works on paper to "Yellow Bikini," it’s apparent that Bush used the same yellow to evoke forsythia and the same pink for cherry blossoms. Bush was always most prolific during the spring, and "Yellow Bikini" is, like the season, brimming with a sense of fun and optimism. The colours in the abstract shapes pop against the grey browns of the background, a colour which Bush frequently used and likened to the dead wood of winter from which new buds break through. An absolute powerhouse of a painting titled "May Burst" (recently gifted to the National Gallery of Canada from the Council for Canadian American Relations), measuring more than four meters long, is a close relative of "Yellow Bikini". An expressionistic cluster of yellow strokes gather at the top right hand corner of "May Burst" while a clean stroke of green and pink-red are placed close by, all against the sleeping wood-coloured ground. "Yellow Bikini" was painted one year before "May Burst" and may have served as a model for this aesthetic approach. Just as in nature, the buds and blooms appear brighter and sharper against a neutral ground. Whether Bush was celebrating the vitality of Raquel Welch or the assets of spring, the effect is the same: gaiety and the excitement of all things fresh and beautiful. We extend our thanks to Dr. Sarah Stanners, an Adjunct Professor, curator, and author who recently produced "Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné" (2024), for contributing the preceding essay.