E.107 Passage 1996; reworked 1998

• I. 1st state of 4, 1996

  Etching. A depiction of a passageway between two heavily rusticated stone buildings, bridged at the top; beyond the passageway is a parapet, and beyond that a treed city landscape. A man, holding a briefcase, walks through the passage into the light, his shadow cast behind him. The sky is composed of many small, wispy strokes. The composition is complete. There are two variant impressions of this state.

  1. Cleanly wiped impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1-1’; lower centre: ‘Passage’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor 96’.
  2. Dark impression with plate tone, on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1-2’; lower centre: ‘Passage’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor 96’. Although inscribed ‘1-2’, this is an impression of the first state.

• I.a. 1st state of 4, 1996

  

  Etching. A depiction of a passageway between two heavily rusticated stone buildings, bridged at the top; beyond the passageway is a parapet, and beyond that a treed city landscape. A man, holding a briefcase, walks through the passage into the light, his shadow cast behind him. The sky is composed of many small, wispy strokes. The composition is complete. There are two variant impressions of this state.

• II. 2nd state of 4, 1996

  Many areas along a vertical band down the centre of the plate have been lightened through burnishing; these include the sky, the tree, and the shadowed area above the rustication at the left of the passage.

  Cleanly wiped impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1-3’; lower centre: ‘Passage’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor 96’. Although inscribed ‘1-3’, this is the second state.

• III. 3rd state of 4, 1996

  Drypoint has been added to the foreground buildings, intensifying the contrasts between dark and light. There are two variant impressions of this state.

  1. Cleanly wiped impression on wove BFK Rives paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1-4’; lower centre: ‘Passage’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor 96’. Although inscribed ‘1-4’, this is an impression of the third state. (Featured Image)
  2. Dark impression with plate tone, on wove BFK Rives paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘2-4’; lower centre: ‘Passage’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor 96’. Although inscribed ‘2-4’, this is an impression of the third state.

• III.a. 3rd state of 4, 1996 (Featured Image)

  

  Drypoint has been added to the foreground buildings, intensifying the contrasts between dark and light. There are two variant impressions of this state.

• First edition, 1996

  Nominal edition of ten, but only two impressions were printed and numbered. These are on wove paper and were printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. The edition included two artist’s proofs: AP I, on buff paper, and AP II, on white BFK Rives paper with watermark. Each impression is inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘[status of impression]’ [or] ‘[1 or 2]/10’; lower centre: ‘Passage’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor 96’.

• IV. 4th and final state, 1998

  

  The illuminated areas of the foreground buildings at left have been lightened through burnishing, and the drypoint accents on the distant tree removed.

  Cleanly wiped impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Passage’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor 98’. Although inscribed ‘1’, this is the fourth and final state.

• Second edition, 1998

  Nominal edition of ten, but only two impressions were printed and numbered. These are on wove paper and were printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. The edition included two artist’s proofs: AP I, printed with heavy plate tone on white paper, and AP II, printed with plate tone on buff paper. Each impression is inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘[status of impression]’ [or] ‘[1 or 2]/10’; lower centre: ‘Passage’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor 98’.

  Edition sheet size: 384 x 282 mm

• Comment

  This etching repeats a composition that first appeared in two large prints made by Amor in 1993: a woodcut and a drypoint (cat. no. E.073), both titled Passage. Of the two, the drypoint has a squatter format and shows the passage as a larger opening. The vertically compressed space of the present composition, together with the resultant viewpoint, brings it closer to the woodcut.

  The subject in these three works is based on the view from beneath Princes Bridge (built 1888) at Southbank, in central Melbourne, looking across the Yarra River towards Flinders Street Station, although in E.107 – due to the vantage point – neither the river nor the station is visible.

  The first three states of the etching, which were worked in 1996, are concerned with establishing the monumentality of the buildings in the foreground, and the contrast between the dark, enclosed space of the passage and the scene in daylight beyond it. In the third state this contrast is marked, but the spatial recession remains blocked by the central tree in the distance. The tree was burnished back dramatically in the fourth and final state, of 1998, resulting in an image that strikingly depicts, in miniature, the passage from darkness to flooding daylight. In printing the edition impressions of E.107, Amor experimented with the wiping of the plate, and used buff as well as white papers.