E.044 The pillar 1991

• I. 1st state of 4

  

  Etching over sandpaper ground. A view under a railway bridge supported by a large central concrete pillar. At the far left is a fragment of a nineteenth-century building. To the right of the building are two cypresses, and in the middle distance is an elevated roadway.

  Impression on wove Arches paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘The Pillar’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’.

• II. 2nd state of 4

  Drypoint shadows have been added to the tree foliage and to the upper area of the rustication of the building at left. The sandpaper tone has been burnished around the framing line, in the areas of cloud, and in the irregular area at the base of the pillar. There are three variant impressions of this state.

  1. Impression on wove Arches paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘2 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘The Pillar’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’.
  2. Dark impression with much plate tone, on wove Arches paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘3 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘The Pillar’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘3’, this is an impression of the second state.
  3. Selectively wiped impression with light plate tone, on wove Arches paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘4 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘The Pillar’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘4’, this is an impression of the second state.

• II.a. 2nd state of 4

  

  Drypoint shadows have been added to the tree foliage and to the upper area of the rustication of the building at left. The sandpaper tone has been burnished around the framing line, in the areas of cloud, and in the irregular area at the base of the pillar. There are three variant impressions of this state.

• III. 3rd state of 4

  The plate has been re-etched and all the lines are now slightly thicker and darker. Etched hatching covers large areas of the plate, including the sky, the pillar, the footpath and the road. There are three variant impressions of this state.

  1. 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 centre: ‘The Pillar’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘5’, this is an impression of the third state.
  2. Lighter 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 centre: ‘The Pillar’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘6’, this is an impression of the third state.
  3. Impression with plate tone, on wove Arches paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘7 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘The Pillar’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘7’, this is an impression of the third state.

• III.a. 3rd state of 4

  

  The plate has been re-etched and all the lines are now slightly thicker and darker. Etched hatching covers large areas of the plate, including the sky, the pillar, the footpath and the road. There are three variant impressions of this state.

• IV. 4th and final state

  The plate has been burnished in many places so as to give the image a greater sense of volume and space and to enhance the overall tonal balance. The areas of burnishing include the vertical strip of masonry on the building at the far left, the irregularly shaped protruding section at the base of the pillar, the overpass pillar in the right middle distance, and the buildings behind it. There are three variant impressions of this state.

  1. Impression on cream wove BFK Rives paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘8 [circled]’; lower centre: ‘The Pillar’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’. Although inscribed ‘8’, this is an impression of the fourth and final state. (Featured Image)
  2. Impression on wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘AP’; lower centre: ‘The Pillar’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’.
  3. Dark impression with much plate tone, printed in colours from two runs through the press, one in sepia ink, the other in black, on cream wove paper, printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘Out of Series’; lower centre: ‘The Pillar’; lower right: signed and dated ‘Rick Amor ’91’.

• IV.a. 4th and final state (Featured Image)

  

  The plate has been burnished in many places so as to give the image a greater sense of volume and space and to enhance the overall tonal balance. The areas of burnishing include the vertical strip of masonry on the building at the far left, the irregularly shaped protruding section at the base of the pillar, the overpass pillar in the right middle distance, and the buildings behind it. There are three variant impressions of this state.

• Edition, 1991

  Nominal edition of ten, but only one impression was printed and numbered (according to Amor’s intaglio record books). It is on wove paper and was printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio. This impression has not been sighted.

• Comment

  The pillar depicted here is one of the columns supporting the railway bridge near the intersection of Flinders and Spencer Streets in the city of Melbourne, an area that has undergone major infrastructure and building development in the decades since the early 1990s. E.044 is based on a photograph taken by the artist and is the earliest of several closely related paintings and etchings. These fall into two types: the first represented by this print, and the second by an etching made in the following year, which shows the same pillar but with the orientation of the image reversed (see cat. no. E.064). Both etchings have their painted variants.

  In the first three states of this print, Amor worked on modelling the image in dark tones with drypoint and etching, while in the final state he used the burnishing tool to calibrate the light areas of the image in order to enhance its tonal balance and to give it a greater sense of volume and space. However, he continued experimenting with dark tone to the end, as the National Gallery of Australia’s ‘out of series’ impression (E.044.IV.c) demonstrates.

  A drawing in colour pastels on blue paper, dated 28 May 1991, was made after the etching; both works are oriented in the same direction.