Etching. A beach scene with sand dunes, and with a headland in the far distance. In the foreground are two prominent dead trees, which lean leftwards; below them, to their right, is a boatshed with a flat roof, along which a man runs in the direction of the sea. In the left distance are three telegraph poles; beyond them is the peaked roof of a house, and there is another house depicted nearer the shore. The composition is complete in all essential details but the subject is lightly etched.
Much etching has been added throughout the plate, and drypoint has been introduced to create a more tonal, and much darker, image and to intensify the appearance of the massive clouds and the other markers of stormy weather.
Drypoint accents have been added to the telegraph poles at left, and to the running figure and its shadow.
The headland, the boatshed and the figure have all been burnished to a lighter tone.
- Catalogue Number
- E.030
- Title and Date
- Foreshore 1990
- Description of Featured Image
- A beach scene with sand dunes and with a headland in the far distance. In the foreground are two prominent dead trees, which lean leftwards, and below them, to their right, is a boatshed with a flat roof. On this roof is a man who runs in the direction of the sea. In the left distance are three telegraph poles and beyond them the peaked roof of a house, with another house depicted nearer the shore.
- Where Made
- Dunmoochin, Cottles Bridge
- Medium Category and Technique
- Intaglio Print: Etching, drypoint and burnishing on copper
- Support
- Wove paper. Identified papers: Buff BFK Rives paper.
- Dimensions
-
Image size: 222 x 290 mm
Matrix size: 227 x 292 mm - Artist’s Record Number
- RAE.26
- Printer(s) and Workshop(s)
- All impressions printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio, Cottles Bridge.
- Summary Edition Information
- Four states. Edition of ten numbered impressions, 1990.
- Exhibitions
- Niagara Galleries & NETS Victoria 1993–94: Niagara Galleries & NETS Victoria, Melbourne, Rick Amor & the Graphic Arts, Victorian and Tasmanian tour, 1993–94, no. 24.
- Literature
- Gary Catalano, The Solitary Watcher: Rick Amor and His Art, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, Victoria, 2001, pp. 12–13, illus. p. 13.
- Collections
- State Library of Victoria, Melbourne: three state impressions, numbered 1 through 3.
- Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide: ed. 8/10 (20155G137).
- National Gallery of Australia, Canberra: ed. 6/10, on buff paper (2007.629)
- Comment
Amor has explained that the subject of E.030 was prompted by the memory of a childhood game, played on the Frankston foreshore, whereby he and his friends would race along the flat roof of a boatshed and then jump from it onto the sand below (Catalano 2001). There is nothing playful about this image, however. The apprehension that the young Rick Amor must have felt before jumping off the boatshed roof is transformed here into a more general existential apprehension, which is alluded to metaphorically by the presence of the two dead trees.
The etching is related to two other works by the artist: a drawing in pencil and pastel, Study for ‘Memory of the foreshore’ (Art Gallery of Ballarat, inv. no. 1995.52), which is inscribed with two dates ([19]89 and 1/7/90), and the oil Memory of the foreshore, dated to August 1990. Although the drawing purports to be a study for the painting, it is more likely that the painting follows the etching, as both works depict a running figure, not a stationary one as in the drawing. There are also other details that the print and the painting have in common, most notably the telegraph poles at left.
In the first three states of the etching, Amor moved towards an increasingly clear definition of the subject and an increasingly intense evocation of threatening weather, but in the final state he drew back, toning down the blacks by burnishing areas of drypoint burr.
Ed. 5/10 was offered as a door prize at the McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park, Langwarrin, at the time of the exhibition Rick Amor: Standing in the Shadows, in 2005.
- Keywords
- Landscape, Landscape - sea, Sea
- URL
- https://catalogue.rickamor.com.au/works/intaglio/foreshore/
Record last updated 15/02/2021