As carefree as Jack Bush’s paintings appear to be – in their handling of paint and ‘ad-libbing’ of colour – he was remarkably careful. The artist kept three tidy record books, which stood as an inventory of his fine art. He recorded matters such as titles, dates, dimensions, medium and...

This especially fine preliminary study of what would ultimately be developed into an illustration for Le Grand Silence Blanc (on page 168) is aesthetically precious, an important visual document in the narrative of Clarence Gagnon and announced the first “official inauguration” of Canadian art in France, in 1927 at Paris’,...