Jack Bush is best known for his abstract paintings done between the 1950s and 1970s. He represented Canada at the 1967 São Paulo Bienal and the Art Gallery of Ontario toured a large retrospective exhibition of his work in 1976. Bush created advertisements and illustrations for 42 years before devoting himself full-time to painting in 1968.  

As a young man in Toronto in the 1930s, Bush ran a commercial art business and took night classes at the Ontario College of Art. During this period he had very little exposure to modern European art, and, like most other Toronto painters at the time, was primarily influenced by the Group of Seven.  After seeing abstract art in Toronto and New York Bush began to experiment with abstraction himself in the early 1950s.  

Bush was a member of the Toronto artist group Painters Eleven who banded together in 1954 to promote abstract painting.  In 2014/2015 the National Art Gallery held a major retrospective including 130 paintings and works on paper.