E.081 Barrie Reid 1993

• I. 1st state of 6

  Drypoint. A three-quarter profile portrait of Barrett Reid, facing right. The portrait shows the head and upper torso. Reid wears spectacles, and is dressed in a sweater over a shirt. The background is blank. The portrait is scored lightly in drypoint.

  Impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Barrie Reid’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’93’.

• II. 2nd state of 6

  

  Etched details have been added to the hair, face, spectacles, shirt collar, and sweater. The background at right has been lightly shaded with vertical lines.

  Impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘2 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Barrie Reid’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’93’.

• III. 3rd state of 6

  Vertical and oblique strokes have been added to the background at right. More etched detail has been added to the hairline, ear, neck and left cheek, and definition has been added to the clothes.

  Impression with light plate tone, on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘3 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Barrie Reid’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’93’.

• IV. 4th state of 6

  

  The contour of the head has been strengthened, and hatching has been added to various parts of the face, including the cheeks, the chin, and the nose, above the left nostril.

  Impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘4 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Barrie Reid’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’93’.

• V. 5th state of 6

  A horizontal line has been added to the background at the upper left. Oblique hatching has been added to the modelling of the face and to the sweater at right.

  Impression with light plate tone, on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘Bon à tirer’; lower centre: ‘Barrie Reid’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’93’. Although inscribed ‘Bon à tirer’, this is the fifth state.

• VI. 6th and final state

  Several oblique strokes have been added to the forehead at left. There are three variant impressions of this state.

  1. Impression with light plate tone, on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘AP I’; lower centre: ‘Barrie Reid’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’93’.
  2. Impression with rich burr and plate tone, on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘AP II’; lower centre: ‘Barrie Reid’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’93’. (Featured Image)
  3. Light, cleanly wiped impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘out of series’; lower centre: ‘Barrie Reid’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’93’.

• VI.b. Artist’s proof of 6th and final state (Featured Image)

  

  Several oblique strokes have been added to the forehead at left. There are three variant impressions of this state.

• Edition, 1993

  Edition of seven numbered impressions, on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Each impression is inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘[1 through 7]/7’; lower centre: ‘Barrie Reid’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor 93’.

  Edition sheet size: 386 x 284 mm

• Comment

  Barrett (Barrie) Reid (1926–1995) – writer, poet, literary editor and librarian – belonged to the circle of writers and artists who gathered around John and Sunday Reed at their home, Heide, in Bulleen in outer Melbourne. Patrons of both art and literature, the Reeds welcomed members of Australia’s creative communities to Heide for nearly five decades, beginning in the mid 1930s. In November 1981, after its purchase by the State Government of Victoria, the modernist house and gallery ‘Heide II’, which had been built by the Reeds on their property in the mid 1960s, was opened as a public art museum – today’s Heide Museum of Modern Art.

  Following the deaths of John and Sunday Reed, within days of each other in December 1981, Barrett Reid lived at Heide. He was editor of the literary journal Overland from 1988 to 1993, when he retired due to ill health (he had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma some fifteen years earlier). The present portrait, along with portrait prints of four other Australian writers, was commissioned by Reid in 1992 for Overland.

  Amor based his drypoint portrait of Reid on a pencil drawing. The artist had known Reid since the 1970s and liked to visit him at Heide. Amor remembers that Reid was taken aback by the portrait, telling Amor that he did not like it. ‘Who’s the elderly party?’ he asked.

  Amor’s other subjects for the 1992 Overland commission were Helen Garner (cat. no. E.068), Barry Hill (E.070), David Malouf (E.072) and Chris Wallace-Crabbe (E.080).