Sold for: $52,250

PROVENANCE
David Mirvish Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Kay Kritzwiser, “Sex Is Subtle in Etrog Sculptures,” The Globe and Mail, December 2, 1972, page 30
Marc Mayer and Sarah Stanners, Jack Bush, National Gallery of Canada, 2014, page 28

EXHIBITED
David Mirvish Gallery, Toronto, Jack Bush: New Works, December 2 - 30, 1972

In the spring and summer of 1972, Jack Bush created a series of vibrant canvases inspired by his garden, a familiar and much-loved source of creativity. Shy May is an excellent example from this playful series of works, which were exhibited by David Mirvish Gallery in December of the same year. The painting’s title suggests the hesitation of a warmer season and can be read in the cautious, though bright, dabs of indigo and pink pigment, and in the muted tones of the mottled ochre background and sage green stripe. Applied directly with a roller and sometimes mixed with another dry pigment, the stippled background is a distinctive marker of Bush’s works from this time period; it serves to create a patterned and textured background on which his colourful shapes can float, drawing attention to the surface of the painting and its inherent two-dimensionality. Shy May illustrates Marc Mayer’s observation perfectly: “Many of [Bush’s] most beautiful and challenging pictures were painted on these prepared grounds, vivid and emphatic compositions that grip the eye and divert the mind.”

This work will be included in Sarah Stanners's forthcoming Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars