"Bush, of course, is not a formally trained painter, raising the question of whether he is an outsider artist."

"[Jack] Fischer, who exhibits outsider art, which is made by artists who are self-taught or work outside the mainstream art world, said that Bush 'in a sense' fit the definition because he was never interested in having his work looked at or shown."

IN THE COMMENTS: john said:

If he is the same Jack Fischer, art critic, who died in San Francisco yesterday, then his Hitler/Bush comparison must have been his dying words. 

Chuck Currie said:

John - One and the same Jack Fischer dead at 59.

So it's not true that only the good die young.

Let's be careful. I didn't highlight the Hitler point, but there is no sign that Fischer said Bush was in some moral or political fashion like Hitler. He was contacted, apparently because his gallery specializes in outsider art, and he said:

"What immediately comes to mind is Hitler's paintings and the immediate brouhaha that that caused... There's this peculiar sort of interest in a famous figure having painted."

In fact, it is the first thing you think of. Maybe you should refrain from blurting it out. Another thing you can do, once you've thought of that, is to point out that Hitler tried to be an artist and failed. Then he became a politician. When that failed, he committed suicide. Bush became a businessman first, had some success, parlayed that into politics, and when his term ended — as a matter of law, not failure — he graciously disappeared into retirement and took up painting for reasons other than a desire to be recognized as an artist.

The Jack Fischer Gallery has a nice-looking website. You can check out the artists here. Sympathy to the man's family.