E.013 Runner (large plate) 1989; reworked 1991 and 1992

• I. 1st state of 10, 1989

  Etching. A depiction of a man, surrounded by stormy seas, who runs to the right, along a low-lying pier. Looming in the foreground is another, taller wooden pier. The subject is lightly outlined in etching.

  Impression on wove Fabriano paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’89’.

• II. 2nd state of 10, 1989

  Cross-hatching has been added to the uppermost beam of wood, and elsewhere throughout the plate. There are two variant impressions of this state.

  1. Impression on wove Fabriano paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘2 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’89’.
  2. Impression on wove Fabriano paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘3 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’89’. Although inscribed ‘3’, this is an impression of the second state. 

• II.a. 2nd state of 10, 1989

  

  Cross-hatching has been added to the uppermost beam of wood, and elsewhere throughout the plate. There are two variant impressions of this state.

• III. 3rd state of 10, 1989

  Cross-hatching has been added to the lower pier, beneath the running figure.

  Impression on wove Fabriano paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘4 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’89’; upper right corner of sheet, along the vertical edge: initialled ‘RA’. Although inscribed ‘4’, this is the third state.

• IV. 4th state of 10, 1989

  Loosely etched strokes have been added to the sky in the centre.

  Impression on wove Fabriano paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘5 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’89’. Although inscribed ‘5’, this is the fourth state.

• V. 5th state of 10, 1989

  Many horizontal strokes have been added to the undersides of the two upper beams, and the plate now prints more darkly. There are two variant impressions of this state.

  1. Impression on wove Fabriano paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘6 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’89’. Although inscribed ‘6’, this is an impression of the fifth state.
  2. Impression on wove Fabriano paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘7 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’89’. Although inscribed ‘7’, this is an impression of the fifth state.

• VI. 6th state of 10, 1989

  

  Outlines of billowing clouds, and oblique rays, have been added to the central area of sky, and much of the sky has been covered with etched strokes. The sky now merges with the sea at the left edge of the image.

  Impression on wove Fabriano paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark:  lower left: ‘8 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’89’. Although inscribed ‘8’, this is the sixth state.

• VII. 7th state of 10, 1989

  Etched shading has been added to the figure of the running man, and the area immediately above him has been burnished. There are two variant impressions of this state.

  1. Impression on wove Fabriano paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘9 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’89’. Although inscribed ‘9’, this is an impression of the seventh state. 
  2. Impression on wove Fabriano paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘10 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’89’. Although inscribed ‘10’, this is an impression of the seventh state.

• VIII. 8th state of 10, 1991

  The plate has been heavily scored with drypoint.

  Impression with plate tone, on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘11 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘11’, this is the eighth state.

• IX. 9th state of 10, 1992

  

  The plate has been reworked. The sky has been further darkened with prominent drypoint cross-hatching, which is not integrated into the image but stands out as a graphic device. In his intaglio record book, Amor indicates that he printed two artist’s proofs of this state, and that they were inscribed ‘AP I’ and ‘AP II’ respectively. These impressions have not been located.

  Impression with plate tone, on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘12 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’92’. Although inscribed ‘12’, this is the ninth state.

• X. 10th and final state, 1992

  The plate has been reworked for a final time. Some of the drypoint added to the sky, and elsewhere, in the ninth state has been burnished. In the sky, the effect of the burnishing has been the creation of three distinct layers of dark cloud. There are two variant impressions of this state.

  1. Impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘AP III’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’92’.
  2. Impression on wove paper with fragment of watermark, printed, and hand-coloured with watercolour, by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘AP IV’; lower centre: ‘Runner’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’92’. (Featured Image)

• X.b. Hand-coloured artist’s proof of 10th and final state, 1992 (Featured Image)

  

  The plate has been reworked for a final time. Some of the drypoint added to the sky, and elsewhere, in the ninth state has been burnished. In the sky, the effect of the burnishing has been the creation of three distinct layers of dark cloud. There are two variant impressions of this state.

• No edition

• Comment

  This drypoint is one of a group of similar images made, or begun, in the 1980s. Among the intaglios, E.013 was preceded by the etching Runner (small plate), 1988 (cat. no. E.004), although there the subject is oriented in the reverse direction and the depiction is purely linear. E.013 is closest in size to the 1984 woodcut Runner, in which the motif of the running man and the sea appeared for the first time in Amor’s art (Catalano 2001). However, while the dimensions of the woodcut and those of this work are roughly comparable, the scale within the two compositions differs; here the figure is smaller, is seen from a greater distance, and appears to be more overwhelmed by the elements.

  The drypoint progressed through ten states, with Amor incrementally darkening the tone, and thereby the work’s emotional reverberations. A late catalyst for this development was the emotionally turbulent, mural-sized charcoal image of the runner that Amor made in 1990 as part of an installation for the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), commissioned by ACCA’s then director, Grazia Gunn, for a series of exhibitions titled The ACCA Wallpapers.

  The hand-colouring of an artist’s proof of the final state, reproduced here as the Featured Image, corresponds, generally, to the colours in Amor’s 1988 oil painting of the runner subject (Lindsay 2005), although the watercolour wash is transparent and thus less intense.

  For further discussion of the theme of the runner in Amor’s art, see Comment in entry for cat. no. E.004.