A member of Painters Eleven, a group of Canadian artists founded in 1954 that worked to promote abstract art, Jack Bush became one of the country's leading painters. Inspired by American Color Field painters such as Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis; Bush, at the age of 50, began to reorient his work and became widely known in the 1960s for his spare yet highly colorful abstractions executed in oil paint. This classic example is part of the artist's 'Column' series in which he framed a number of horizontal stripes within large solid areas that emphasize their color relationships and are notable for their warm, absorbent color effects and their sensitively brushed, velvety surfaces. All colors were stained into the fabric of the canvas in the manner of Color Field painters, making the solid areas matte. The overlaps of colors in this piece indicate that the center column of stripes was applied first.

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