I. 1st state of 6
IV. 4th state of 6
VI. 6th and final state (bon à tirer impression) (Featured Image)
E.036 Out to sea 1991
I. 1st state of 6
Etching. A view of the mouth of a river, with three mooring poles at left and others in the far distance. In the right foreground is a small motorized boat with a man at the stern, steering the craft out to sea. The subject is essentially complete. A small area of grey burnishing marks is visible in the upper left part of the sky.
Impression on cream wove BFK Rives paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Out to Sea’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor 91’.
IV. 4th state of 6
More etching has been added throughout the plate: to the sea, the sky, the boat, the land at both right and left, and all the mooring poles. The whole image appears much darker – now a late-twilight scene.
Impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘7 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Out to Sea’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘7’, this is the fourth state.
VI. 6th and final state (bon à tirer impression) (Featured Image)
Additional burnishing has been applied: to the promontory at right, to the lower part of the sky, and around the prow of the boat.
Etching. A view of the mouth of a river, with three mooring poles at left and others in the far distance. In the right foreground is a small motorized boat with a man at the stern, steering the craft out to sea. The subject is essentially complete. A small area of grey burnishing marks is visible in the upper left part of the sky.
More etching has been added throughout the plate: to the sea, the sky, the boat, the land at both right and left, and all the mooring poles. The whole image appears much darker – now a late-twilight scene.
Additional burnishing has been applied: to the promontory at right, to the lower part of the sky, and around the prow of the boat.
- Catalogue Number
- E.036
- Title and Date
- Out to sea 1991
- Description of Featured Image
- A view of the mouth of a river, with three mooring poles at left and others in the far distance. In the right foreground is a small motorized boat with a canopy over the prow and with a man seated at the stern, steering his craft out to sea.
- Where Made
- Dunmoochin, Cottles Bridge
- Medium Category and Technique
- Intaglio Print: Etching, drypoint and burnishing on copper
- Support
- Wove paper. Identified papers: Cream BFK Rives paper with watermark: ‘BFK RIVES / FRANCE’ with infinity symbol. Other papers mentioned in notes on this work in Amor’s intaglio record books: cream Stonehenge paper.
- Dimensions
-
Image size: 147 x 196 mm
Matrix size: 150 x 198 mm - Artist’s Record Number
- RAE.30
- Printer(s) and Workshop(s)
- All impressions printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio, Cottles Bridge.
- Summary Edition Information
- Six states. Nominal edition of twenty, but only ten impressions printed and numbered, 1991.
- Exhibitions
- Niagara Galleries 1991: Niagara Galleries, Richmond (Melbourne), Rick Amor, 10–27 April 1991, no. 19.
- Niagara Galleries & NETS Victoria 1993–94: Niagara Galleries & NETS Victoria, Melbourne, Rick Amor & the Graphic Arts, Victorian and Tasmanian tour, 1993–94, no. 44.
- Niagara Galleries at IWOP 1997: Niagara Galleries at the International Works on Paper Fair, Mitchell Galleries, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, 17–20 July 1997, no. 22f.
- Literature
- For an illustration of the pencil drawing Study for ‘Out to sea’, 1996, see Niagara Galleries, Rick Amor Drawings (exh. cat.), Niagara Galleries, Richmond, Victoria, 1997, unpaginated.
- Collections
- State Library of Victoria, Melbourne: eight state impressions, numbered 1 through 8; bon à tirer impression; ed. 8/20.
- Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide: AP III (20155G139).
- National Gallery of Australia, Canberra: ed. 7/10, on cream wove paper (2007.655).
- Comment
The setting in this etching is the mouth of Kananook Creek, where it enters Port Phillip Bay at Frankston. The subject of the print has been etched from memory, which may explain the primordial atmosphere of the scene. Motorized dinghies were common during Amor’s childhood, but the one depicted here, with its hooded boatman, inevitably calls to mind the vessel in which the mythical figure of Charon ferried the dead to the underworld, across the river Styx.
In the early 1990s, Amor made a number of works that present variations on this subject, including two woodcuts that are close variants of the composition seen in E.036, and a slightly later etching, The boat, 1991 (cat. no. E.056), which depicts the boatman on his return from the sea. A pencil drawing from 1996 continues the theme, but its rendering relies more on observation than it does on the transformations of memory (Niagara Galleries 1997).
- Keywords
- Boat, Frankston, Kananook Creek, Sea
- URL
- https://catalogue.rickamor.com.au/works/intaglio/out-to-sea/
Record last updated 15/02/2021