E.095 AS (Andrew Southall) 1995

• I. 1st state of 3

  

  Drypoint. A half-length portrait of a bearded Andrew Southall, wearing spectacles and with his hair dishevelled. Southall wears a shirt and tie, a V-neck pullover and a jacket. The portrait is basically complete but the left eye appears blank behind the glasses.

  Impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘AS’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’95’.

• II. 2nd state of 3

  The left eye has been delineated more clearly.

  Impression with dark plate tone, on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘2 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘AS’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’95’.

• III. 3rd and final state

  Stubble has been added to the chin. There are six variant impressions of this state.

  1. Impression with rich burr, and a smear of plate tone on the pullover, on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘3 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘AS’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’95’.
  2. Cleanly wiped impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘Bon à tirer’; lower centre: ‘AS’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor 95’. Although inscribed ‘Bon à tirer’, this is an impression of the third and final state. (Featured Image)
  3. Impression with little burr and with light plate tone, on a stiffer wove paper than III.a or III.b, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘Bon à tirer’; lower centre: ‘AS’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’95’. Although inscribed ‘Bon à tirer’, this is an impression of the third and final state.
  4. Three impressions not sighted.

• III.b. 3rd and final state (Featured Image)

  

  Stubble has been added to the chin. There are six variant impressions of this state.

• No edition

• Comment

  This is the last of four print portraits that Amor made of his friend and painting companion, the artist Andrew Southall (b. 1947). The first two of these portraits were woodcuts: Andrew Southall painting, 1984, and Andrew Southall, 1986; the drypoint AS (Andrew Southall) followed, in 1992 (cat. no. E.061).

  Amor and Southall met in 1981, and for many years they regularly painted together outdoors on the Mornington Peninsula. Amor has described Southall’s manner of painting: ‘He would concentrate intently as he juggled colour, composition and subject with a speed and assurance that was fascinating. The result was always a daring, memorable and creative interpretation of whatever was before him’ (quoted in Engledow 2005).

  The present portrait, which shows Southall in a traditional half-length pose, was done from life, in Amor’s Alphington studio, and drawn with a drypoint needle directly onto the copper plate. Amor’s major challenge with this print lay in controlling the drypoint burr in order to obtain tonal balance throughout an image that occupied a comparatively large area.

  Amor considers E.095 to be one of his more sympathetic portraits of Andrew Southall. According to the artist’s intaglio record books, he had planned to print an edition of ten impressions of this work, and the printing of an edition was stated as an accomplished fact when the portrait was first exhibited, at Niagara Galleries, Richmond (Melbourne), in June 1996. However, an edition was never printed and only a few impressions of this work survive.