E.055 Celestial Lane 1991

• I. 1st state of 3

  Drypoint. A view of a short street, lined with buildings and vacant land, and blocked off at one end by buildings. The latter include a domed tower, in front of which grows a cypress. There is a ladder leaning against a wall on the right side of the lane, and at the lower left stands a large metal container for rubbish. There are two variant impressions of this state.

  1. 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: ‘Celestial Lane’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’.
  2. 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 ‘Celestial Lane’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘2’, this is an impression of the first state.

• I.a. 1st state of 3

  

  Drypoint. A view of a short street, lined with buildings and vacant land, and blocked off at one end by buildings. The latter include a domed tower, in front of which grows a cypress. There is a ladder leaning against a wall on the right side of the lane, and at the lower left stands a large metal container for rubbish. There are two variant impressions of this state.

• II. 2nd state of 3

  

  The sky to the left of the dome has been scored with drypoint and is now darker. The ghostly figure of a man has been introduced at the lower right.

  Impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘3 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Celestial Lane’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘3’, this is the second state.

   

• III. 3rd and final state

  The figure of the man is now clearly defined and he is depicted carrying a suitcase. There are two variant impressions of this state.

  1. Impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘A/P I’; lower centre: ‘Celestial Lane’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. (Featured Image)
  2. Heavily inked impression with much burr, on cream wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘AP II’; lower centre: ‘Celestial Lane’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’.

• III.a. Artist’s proof of 3rd and final state (Featured Image)

  

  The figure of the man is now clearly defined and he is depicted carrying a suitcase. There are two variant impressions of this state.

• Edition, 1991

  Nominal edition of ten, but, according to Amor’s intaglio record books, only two impressions were printed and numbered. Neither impression has been sighted and their whereabouts are unknown.

• Comment

  ‘Celestial Lane’, whose actual name is Celestial Avenue, is in Melbourne’s Chinatown district, an area well known to the artist, who frequently went there as a student to eat. This drypoint is based on a sketchbook drawing and is the second appearance of a ‘Celestial Lane’ subject in Amor’s intaglio prints; the first was his identically titled etching of 1989 (cat. no. E.008). While in E.055 the orientation of the view reverses its true direction, this work is arguably the more accurate of the two depictions, since it shows the streetscape without the trees and the lion’s head that Amor had included in E.008.

  When, in the second state of the present work, Amor added the figure of the besuited office worker with briefcase, he introduced, for the first time in his prints, a motif that would become an important recurring element in his art. More manikin than man, the figure in the foreground of E.055 – a descendant of John Brack’s city office workers, but resolutely alone – stands for the condition of the individual isolated in contemporary society: the office worker who goes about his tasks mechanically, like an automaton or puppet.

  Amor had made a woodcut titled Celestial lane in 1989–90; this work is recognizably a depiction of the same location as is seen in E.055, but presents the view from a slightly different perspective and with differences of detail.