Art historian and A&S alum Sarah Stanners likens her recently published Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné to delivering a baby — a delivery 13 years in the making.
The Jack Bush catalogue raisonné spans six decades, 1,850 paintings and four elegantly designed, massive hardback volumes. Each painting includes inscriptions, provenance, exhibitions, bibliography and occasional excerpts from the diaries of Bush, a Canadian abstract painter who died in 1977.
“There are catalogues raisonnés that have been in the works for decades,” says Stanners, who earned her honours bachelor of arts in 2003 as a member of University College and a doctorate in fine art history in 2009. “I didn't want that. I knew I would build a career on actually getting it done.”
In the art world, a catalogue raisonné is more than just the collected works of an artist. It is something special: a comprehensive, annotated record of an artist’s complete body of work. A record of what's authentic.
“It's a wonderful way to get to know an artist and to extend their legacy,” Stanners says. “And that was the real mission, to really show the world just how great Canadian art can be.”
The project has been closely affiliated with the Department of Art History where Stanners is an adjunct professor. The department gave Stanners the means to connect with her research assistants — undergraduate and graduate students. It was also home to a Jack Bush project fund, which helped with private funding for the project.
“I had a really nice symbiotic relationship with the department and was able to give hands-on experience to the students, who got to see what it took to compile a catalogue raisonné and do in-depth archival searches and cataloging,” Stanners says.
“The department was thrilled to support her publication of Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, a monumental achievement that will change our view of this Toronto-born painter and his place in art history,” says department chair Joseph Clarke.
The Jack Bush catalogue had a humble beginning: a PhD graduate looking for a job. Stanners had just finished a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia when she began to network with people she’d met while working on her thesis, which included a chapter on Jack Bush.
“Jack is a wonderful reflection of the arc and development of modernist painting in Canada, or modernism in general,” Stanners says. “And he did this all from Toronto because he knew his responsibilities were here with his family.”
Stanners was fortunate enough to meet David Mirvish, an art collector and the owner of Toronto-based Mirvish Productions. Mirvish made helpful introductions for Stanners. At dinner parties, talks and private art tours, she met people who were eager to see a Jack Bush catalogue raisonné and willing to contribute private backing to turn it into a reality.
“They saw me as the scholar that could make it happen,” Stanners says.
There began a grueling 12 years of research. Stanners quickly became a foremost expert on Bush. She established the authenticity of each of Bush’s 1,850 paintings, which involved extensive travel to examine the paintings in person.
“There were years where I was on the dark side of the moon,” she says. “At that point of the project I couldn’t turn back because I couldn’t see where it started, and yet, I couldn’t see the horizon line.”
But even during the long slog, there were moments of light. Stanners fondly recollects working with Michael Fried, the acclaimed art critic, who provided a preface for the catalogue.
“He read the entire project, soup to nuts. He was living during that time, knew Jack and met many of the artists and critics mentioned throughout the book,” Stanners says. “I am still intimidated by him in a healthy way.”
As in every facet of its production, printing a catalogue raisonné is no simple matter. Here, Stanners turned to Lucas Elke and Type A Print to shepherd the project through the crucial process of colour correction, layout and choosing the right printer.
Elke’s first impression of the project? Overwhelming.
“A catalogue raisonné is such a monumental project,” says Elke, who earned his honours bachelor of arts in 2015 as a member of Woodsworth College and a master of arts in 2016. “How do we honour the artist to the best capacity? How do we make sure this project is done right? Because after preparing it for more than 10 years, we weren't about to cut any corners.”
Elke says his team had to reformulate their approach in terms of organization and timelines. Together, he and Stanners put in weeks of eight-hour sessions going through the strenuous process of colour-correcting every one of Bush’s paintings.
“We had to eat the elephant piece by piece,” Stanners says.
According to Elke, most people — even artists and art experts — are unable to recall colours precisely. If a person viewed a Picasso, four months later they would likely be unable to pick out the exact blue used. Not so, for Stanners.
“She was an absolute outlier of successfully recalling these images,” Elke says. “At first, we doubted her, and then she just proved it right every single time. I have never actually seen that kind of successful recollection for colours, and I don't think I will again.”
“I looked and said, ‘Oh, okay, that grey needs to be a little lighter. That yellow is too school bus. It needs to be brighter yellow,’” Stanners says.
Even with Stanners’s unique talent — part innate, part intense familiarity with Bush’s colour palette — the process of receiving proofs and colour-correcting all four volumes of the catalogue was laborious. The team went back and forth with their Belgium-based printer until everyone was satisfied with the result.
“In terms of Canadian art publishing, the catalogue has to be one of the biggest, one of the most prestigious and one of the most important pieces,” Elke says. “And so, to say I was a part of that, I feel honoured.”
For Stanners, the completion of the project has been gratifying, relieving, melancholic and totally surreal. She is especially pleased by the responses to the catalogue, ranging from art collectors who own Bush paintings to artists inspired by his work.
“Artists have said to me, ‘I can't afford his paintings, but I love his work. Now I can look at all of them and see where his mistakes were and where his triumphs were.’”
On the wave of the Jack Bush catalogue’s success, some are already eager to hear what’s next for Stanners, who has not ruled out the possibility of another catalogue raisonné. She’s keen to keep shining the light on Canadian art history, including great female artists like Joyce Wieland, Frances-Anne Johnston and Florence Helena McGillivray.
“I think there's a lot of really great women artists in Canada that could be seen in a brilliant way in a catalogue raisonné.”