Etching. A giant T-shaped bridge span stands at a construction site, amid pools of standing water and with the sea beyond. Underneath the span stands a tiny figure. In the right distance rises a mushroom-topped natural cloud. The cross-hatching is comparatively broadly spaced.
Much etched hatching has been applied to the concrete structure to give it greater bulk and volume. Fine, loose etching has been introduced behind the framework construction at the far left. The topmost rock at the lower left has been burnished. There are two variant impressions of this state.
Additional etched lines now model the cloud, and oblique lines have been added to the sky at the horizon. The pool of water at the far right has added reflection lines and, in the upper central band of sea, the protruding earth among the pools of water has been modelled with etched hatching. There are three variant impressions of this state.
- Catalogue Number
- E.135
- Title and Date
- Coast 2006
- Description of Featured Image
- A giant T-shaped bridge span stands at a construction site, amid pools of standing water and with the sea beyond. Underneath the span stands a tiny figure. In the right distance rises a mushroom-topped natural cloud.
- Where Made
- Alphington, Melbourne
- Medium Category and Technique
- Intaglio Print: Etching and burnishing on copper
- Support
- Wove paper. Identified papers: BFK Rives paper with watermark: ‘BFK RIVES / FRANCE’ with infinity symbol; Arches paper with watermark: ‘ARCHES / FRANCE’ with infinity symbol.
- Dimensions
-
Image size: 226 x 308 mm
Matrix size: 230 x 310 mm - Artist’s Record Number
- RAE.160
- Printer(s) and Workshop(s)
- All state impressions printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Edition printed by Rosalind Atkins at the Australian Print Workshop, Fitzroy (Melbourne).
- Summary Edition Information
- Three states. Edition of ten numbered impressions, 2006.
- Exhibitions
- Niagara Galleries 2006: Niagara Galleries, Richmond (Melbourne), Rick Amor, 29 August – 30 September 2006 (Side Space), n.n., ed. 8/10.
- Literature
- Bridget Macleod, ‘Rick Amor [interview]’, Artist Profile, no. 39, 2017, p. 82, pl. 04.
- For illustrations of two oil paintings of this subject, see Niagara Galleries, Rick Amor (exh. cat.), Niagara Galleries, Richmond, Victoria, 2007, cat. no. 6 (Study for ‘Coast’, 2006) and cat. no. 7 (Coast, 2006).
- For an illustration of the charcoal drawing Study for ‘Coast’, 2006, see Gavin Fry, Rick Amor, Beagle Press, Roseville, NSW, 2008, p. 212.
- Collections
- State Library of Victoria, Melbourne: five state impressions, numbered 1-1 through 1-4, 2-4; ed. 2/10 and ed. 3/10.
- National Gallery of Australia, Canberra: ed. 1/10 (2008.909).
- Comment
The giant, unfinished bridge span seen at the left in this print belongs to Melbourne’s Bolte Bridge as it appeared during its construction (1996–99). The bridge crosses the Yarra River near Melbourne’s CBD, but here it has been relocated to an anonymous shore and looks more like a ruin than a structure in progress. The mushroom-shaped cloud on the horizon is not a fantastic invention but a depiction of an unusual cloud formation that Amor saw during an evening walk on St Kilda beach, and that he quickly sketched on the back of an envelope.
The composition in E.135 occurs, with little change, in three other works from 2006: a charcoal drawing (Fry 2008), and an oil study and a painting (Niagara Galleries 2007). A span similar to that in the print is the subject of earlier works, such as the etching Unfinished span, 2004 (cat. no. E.132).
The subject of E.135 was fully resolved in the first state but underwent considerable tonal refinements in the following two states.
For a selection of works made by Amor on site during the building of the Bolte Bridge, see those in the collection of the State Library of Victoria: Bolte Bridge under construction, 1996, watercolour (H2009.82/27); Bolte Bridge under construction (south side of Yarra), 1998, watercolour (H2009.82/31); and Bridge under construction, lower Yarra, 1998, oil on canvas (H2009.82/14). These demonstrate how Amor’s plein-air works differ from his studio adaptations, such as the present etching.
- Keywords
- Bolte Bridge, Melbourne, Bridge, Sea
- URL
- https://catalogue.rickamor.com.au/works/intaglio/coast/
Record last updated 16/02/2021