E.045 Self portrait by the river 1991

• I. 1st state of 9

  Etching. Amor portrays himself, from the chest up, in the left foreground of this composition. He stands on the bank of a river. There is a hooked tree branch in the water to the right of him, and a giant dredger on the bank at right. Behind the figure of Amor is a promontory and on it a retaining wall seen side-on; there are cranes in the distance. The sky is filled with clouds. The subject is etched lightly, in all its essential details. There are two variant impressions of this state.

  1. Cleanly wiped impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1 [circled]’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’.
  2. Darker impression with plate tone, on wove Arches paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘2 [circled]’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘2’, this is an impression of the first state.

• I.a. 1st state of 9

  

  Etching. Amor portrays himself, from the chest up, in the left foreground of this composition. He stands on the bank of a river. There is a hooked tree branch in the water to the right of him, and a giant dredger on the bank at right. Behind the figure of Amor is a promontory and on it a retaining wall seen side-on; there are cranes in the distance. The sky is filled with clouds. The subject is etched lightly, in all its essential details. There are two variant impressions of this state.

• II. 2nd state of 9

  The face has been burnished and the eyes now appear closed; the contours of the head and the garments have been strengthened with etching. Volume has been added to the clouds, with drypoint shading applied to their undersides. The retaining wall in the middle distance and the dredger at right have been re-etched.

  Cleanly wiped impression on wove Arches paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘3 [circled]’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘3’, this is the second state.

• III. 3rd state of 9

  

  More etched modelling has been added to the head and face, and the eyes now appear open but very dark. The clothes have been given more etched definition. The areas immediately to the left of the head and in the upper left corner have received more loose etching. The jutting promontory behind the figure appears to have been darkened with additional etching.

  Cleanly wiped impression on wove Arches paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘4 [circled]’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘4’, this is the third state.

• IV. 4th state of 9

  The right side of the artist’s head has been burnished.

  Impression on wove Arches paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘5 [circled]’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘5’, this is the fourth state.

• V. 5th state of 9

  The promontory behind Amor has been burnished so as to enhance the spatial recession and to make the figure more distinct.

  Impression on wove Arches paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘6 [circled]’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘6’, this is the fifth state.

• VI. 6th state of 9

  The promontory has been darkened with more etching.

  Impression on wove Arches paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘6a [circled]’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘6a’, this is the sixth state.

• VII. 7th state of 9

  Drypoint accents have been added throughout the plate. There are two variant impressions of this state.

  1. Impression with rich burr, on grey wove BFK Rives paper (according to Amor’s intaglio record books), printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘7 [circled]’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’.
  2. Impression on grey wove BFK Rives paper (according to Amor’s intaglio record books), printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘8 [circled]’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘8’, this is an impression of the seventh state.

• VII.b. 7th state of 9, on grey paper

  

  Drypoint accents have been added throughout the plate. There are two variant impressions of this state.

• VIII. 8th state of 9

  A narrow area around the head and above the shoulder at left has been burnished, allowing the figure to be more clearly differentiated from the background.

  Impression on cream wove BFK Rives paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘9 [circled]’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘9’, this is the eighth state.

• IX. 9th and final state (Featured Image)

  

  Areas of the plate have been burnished and new tone has been added with a roulette. The water around the branch has been covered with additional loosely etched lines, and new etched curves can be seen in the clouds.

  Impression on cream wove BFK Rives paper (according to Amor’s intaglio record books), printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘AP I’; lower centre: ‘SP By a River’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’.

• No edition

• Comment

  The self portrait in this etching has been transposed from its original garden setting in an earlier painting, Self portrait at the edge of the city, 1989 (Catalano 2001), to the mouth of the river Yarra around the docklands at Port Melbourne. This is a place that Amor knows well, having often depicted this stretch of the river in his paintings and prints. Indeed, it is one of the chief landscape locations in his art, especially during the 1990s, when he took boat trips to the area, either alone or with other artists, in order to work there. In E.045 he has incorporated his earlier self portrait into a view of the docklands that he first recorded in a pencil sketch, The mouth of the Yarra, drawn on the spot, in a sketchbook, on 3 August 1991.

  In transferring the image of himself in his 1989 painting to this etching, Amor moved the figure so far into the corner and so close to the foreground as to omit one of the shoulders. As a result, his work through the nine states of the etching was focused largely on establishing a balance between foreground and background. Amor’s pull towards dark tone is also apparent here and culminates in his use of the roulette in the final state.