E.129 The ship 2003

• I. 1st and only state

  Etching and burnishing. The prow of a huge container ship towers over an enclosed derelict site, blocked in the centre by a wall with four arches. The subject is lightly etched. There are six variant impressions of this state.

  1. Cleanly wiped impression on wove Hahnemühle paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘1-1’; lower centre: ‘The Ship’; lower right: signed and dated ‘R Amor 03’.
  2. Dark impression with plate tone, on wove Hahnemühle paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘2-1’; lower centre: ‘The Ship’; lower right: signed and dated ‘R Amor 03’.
  3. Cleanly wiped impression on wove Hahnemühle paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘3-1’; lower centre: ‘The Ship’; lower right: signed and dated ‘R Amor 03’.
  4. Cleanly wiped impression on wove Hahnemühle paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘AP’; lower centre: ‘The Ship’; lower right: signed and dated ‘R Amor 03’.
  5. Dark, selectively wiped impression on wove Hahnemühle paper with watermark, printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘Bon à tirer’; lower centre: ‘The Ship’; lower right: signed and dated ‘R Amor 03’.
  6. Dark, selectively wiped impression on wove Velin Arches paper with watermark, printed by Martin King at the Australian Print Workshop, Fitzroy (Melbourne). Inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘AP 1/1’; lower centre: ‘The Ship’; lower right: signed and dated ‘R Amor 03’. APW chop mark in lower right corner.

• Two editions, 2003

  Two editions were printed on Velin Arches paper in December 2003 by Martin King at the Australian Print Workshop, Fitzroy (Melbourne). One is an edition of ten cleanly wiped, numbered impressions, dubbed ‘light’; the other is an edition of ten numbered impressions that is uniformly printed with plate tone, dubbed ‘dark’. Each edition included a bon à tirer impression, one artist’s proof and two APW workshop proofs. Each impression is inscribed in pencil, below the plate mark: lower left: ‘[status of impression]’ [or] ‘[1 through 10]/10’; lower centre: ‘The Ship’; lower right: signed and dated ‘R Amor ’03’. Chop mark in lower right corner: ‘APW [within rectangle]’.

• Artist’s proof (from ‘light’ edition, 2003) (Featured Image)

  

  Etching and burnishing. The prow of a huge container ship towers over an enclosed derelict site, blocked in the centre by a wall with four arches. The subject is lightly etched.

• Artist’s proof (from ‘dark’ edition, 2003)

  

• Comment

  The composition in this etching is based on that in the watercolour Study for ‘The ship’, dated 19 May 2003 (Fry 2008), and is oriented in the same direction. The view depicted is clearly a composite, incorporating several distinct elements: the wasteland in the foreground; the ruined or unfinished building with its series of arches (echoes of a Roman aqueduct); and the ship, its prow pressed improbably close to the architecture. The print disconcerts, with its play on size and scale and its knowing reference to antiquity.

  Unusually for Amor, this work exists in just one state, although the edition exists in two distinct versions: one cleanly wiped and light, the other uniformly darkened with plate tone. The numerous variant impressions of the only state serve to document the process of experimentation that led Amor to the decision to edition the plate in two different ways.

  A later version of the subject was painted in 2006 (Fry 2008).