E.180 Terrace 2018

• I. 1st state of 2, 2018

  

  Etching. A street scene during the day depicting a terrace house in profile with pavement in the foreground, which features a large and leafless tree. The sun is brightly shining at an angle onto the tree and the house so that the tree casts a cross-hatched shadow on the white wall behind it. The open windows of the house (upper left and lower right) have been worked in dark, mostly vertical etched marks. The roof has been drawn with overlapping cross-hatching. The lower right corner of the house features a triangle of shadow that continues down onto the pavement in the foreground and extends past the house. This shadow at the rear of the property covers the back fence and the neighbouring house behind the property. On the opposite site of the plate, in front of the house, is a densely drawn area of trees and shadow in which only a small, white tree-trunk directly in front of the house is distinguishable.

  Impression with plate tone, selectively wiped, on wove BFK Rives paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1-1’; lower centre: ‘Terrace’; lower right: signed and dated ‘R. Amor 18’.

• II. 2nd and final state, 2018

  

  Drypoint lines have been added to this state in order to emphasise the branches of the old tree; this is most noticeable at the base of the trunk and extends upwards on the right-hand side of the tree, but it is also present on several of the branches. Amor has left a drypoint burr on these marks, which deepens the shadows on the areas hidden from the sun. A thick line of drypoint has been applied to the horizontal line where the base of the house meets the pavement, and parallel to this, two long drypoint lines have been added to the pavement in order to emphasise a distinction between the paved walkway and the unpaved nature-strip. An additional horizontal drypoint mark has been added to support this distinction to the left of the base of the tree. Two horizontal marks have been made to show the texture of the unpaved path, in the foreground of the image, just left and right of the centre. There are two variant impressions of this state.

  1. Impression on wove BFK Rives paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil below the plate-mark: lower left ‘1-2’, lower centre ‘Terrace’, signed and dated lower right ‘R. Amor ‘18’.
  2. Impression with plate tone, selectively wiped, on wove BFK Rives paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil below the plate-mark: lower left ‘2-2’, lower centre ‘Terrace’, signed and dated lower right ‘R.. Amor ‘18’.

• Edition, 2018

   

   

  Edition of twenty numbered impressions, on wove paper, printed by Simon White at the Australian Print Workshop, Fitzroy (Melbourne), 2018. The edition included two artist’s proofs, two APW workshop proofs, and a printer’s proof. Each impression is inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘[status of impression]’ [or] ‘[1 through 20]/20’; lower centre: ‘Terrace’; lower right: signed and dated ‘R. Amor 18’. Chop mark embossed in lower right corner: ‘APW [within horizontal rectangle]’.

   

  Edition sheet size: 255 x 283 mm

• Edition impression, 2018 (Featured Image)

  

• Comment

  The etching shows the profile view of a double-storied terraced house in Cambridge Street, Abbotsford, that is typical of Melbourne’s domestic architecture. The straight, flat, white wall of the terrace is a perfect backdrop to the gnarled and organic shapes of the branches of the old tree. The house is a robust contrast to the frail shapes of the bare tree, either naked in wintertime or possibly dead. The drama of the work is held in the shadow cast by the tree, which extends beyond every limit of the building. While the bare tree appears fragile it still dominates the house, looming over the neat architectural lines. As Amor worked on this image, he added dark contrasting shadows to emphasise the gnarled knobs and twists in the limbs of the old tree. Behind the fence is the roof of a neighbouring, single-story house, and an additional mass of indistinct foliage appears behind this second property.

  The theme of opposition that is present in the contrast between the tree and the terrace house is repeated in the four windows. The upper left and lower right windows are dark, as if you are looking into the house, while the opposing windows are closed and are a blank white. The lower windows have a sill-and-eave pediment while the upper windows have a basic trim.

  Without sacrificing realism, Amor has simplified this streetscape so that contrasting elements hold the work in tension: light or shadow, flat or textured, organic or man-made.

  There was a version of this subject in painted in oils (now destroyed). Amor has also painted this house from the front and created a lithograph based on that vantage as well.