
Etching. View of a street corner where a massive pillar, with an irregularly shaped concrete base, supports an elevated roadway. Behind the pillar, in the lower half of the image, is a bridge, shown at an angle that decreases from the right to the left. A truck with its cylindrical container is depicted from behind as it moves around the corner, at left.
The roadway structure at the top of the plate has been burnished away and replaced with a sky created with a light mesh of etched strokes. Drypoint has been added to many areas of shadow, including on the tanker at left and on the right face of the pillar.
Drypoint has been added to many areas of the plate, including the ground immediately below the truck, the fence around the pillar, and the left edge of the pillar’s base and around it. A strong broken vertical line has been added at the right edge of the pillar. There are three variant impressions of this state.
- Catalogue Number
- E.064
- Title and Date
- Pillar 1992
- Description of Featured Image
- View of a street corner where a massive pillar, with an irregularly shaped concrete base, extends skyward. Behind it, in the lower half of the plate, is a bridge, shown at an angle that decreases from the right to the left. A truck with its cylindrical container is depicted from behind as it moves around the corner, at left. States I through III showed the pillar supporting an elevated roadway; this was burnished away in the fourth state.
- Where Made
- Dunmoochin, Cottles Bridge
- Medium Category and Technique
- Intaglio Print: Etching, drypoint and burnishing on copper
- Support
- Wove paper. Identified papers: No papers identified.
- Dimensions
-
Image size: 167 x 166 mm
Matrix size: 169 x 168 mm - Artist’s Record Number
- RAE.58
- Printer(s) and Workshop(s)
- All impressions printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio, Cottles Bridge.
- Summary Edition Information
- Eight states. No edition.
- Collections
- State Library of Victoria, Melbourne: eight state impressions, numbered 1 through 8.
- Comment
The pillar depicted here is one of the supports of a railway bridge near the intersection of Flinders and Spencer Streets in Melbourne’s CBD; the image is based on a photograph taken by Amor. An earlier and larger etching, The pillar, 1991 (cat. no. E.044), shows the same pillar, but viewed from a different angle and placed in a different setting.
The liberty with which, in the fourth state, Amor burnished away the underside of the elevated roadway at the top of the plate indicates how freely he is able to change the details of what he sees, to suit his purpose. In removing the raised roadway present in the first three states, he immediately added considerable emphasis to the scale of the pillar, as well as to the surrounding space.
For discussion of Amor’s various depictions of the pillar seen in E.064, see Comment in entry for cat. no. E.044.
- Keywords
- Bridge, Freeway, Pillar, Truck
- URL
- https://catalogue.rickamor.com.au/works/intaglio/pillar/
Record last updated 04/08/2017