Etching and burnishing. This interior setting is a large room with a window at the right and a wall partially blocking off the space; on the inside edge of the wall is an arrow pointing left. In the far left distance a man sits against the back wall; the window above him lets in light, which illuminates the top of his head, his shoulders, and the window sill. The image has been completed with etched hatching and cross-hatching and finished in all essential details.
A small pool of light has been burnished into the area above the step at left. The light that catches the window sill in the far left distance has been made narrower.
The vertical line demarcating the adjoining walls near the window at left has been strengthened with drypoint. The left contour of the left column has similarly been strengthened with drypoint. The front wall has been burnished around the centre. There are two variant impressions of this state.
- Catalogue Number
- E.177
- Title and Date
- The waiting room 2016
- Description of Featured Image
- This interior setting is a large room with a window at the right and a wall partially blocking off the space; on the inside edge of this wall is an arrow pointing left. In the far left distance a man sits against the back wall; the window above him lets in light, which illuminates the top of his head and his shoulders. The interior is supported by two square columns with cross beams on the ceiling.
- Where Made
- Alphington, Melbourne
- Medium Category and Technique
- Intaglio Print: Etching, burnishing and drypoint on copper
- Support
- Wove paper. Identified papers: BFK Rives paper.
- Dimensions
-
Image size: 148 x 200 mm
Matrix size: 150 x 200 mm - Artist’s Record Number
- RAE.222
- Printer(s) and Workshop(s)
- All state impressions printed by Rick Amor in his Alphington studio. Edition printed by Simon White at the Australian Print Workshop, Fitzroy (Melbourne).
- Summary Edition Information
- Four states. Edition of twenty numbered impressions, 2016.
- Exhibitions
- Australian Print Workshop 2016–17: Australian Print Workshop, Fitzroy (Melbourne), Impressions 2016, 26 November 2016 – 25 February 2017 [no catalogue].
- Comment
This etching is after an oil painted earlier in 2016 (not exhibited as of February 2017) but is oriented in reverse direction. There is also a study of the seated figure, drawn in conté crayon, as well as a monochrome watercolour of the whole composition. The interior setting is based on one of Amor’s photographs of Pinacotheca Gallery, in Waltham Place, Richmond (Melbourne), before its closure in 2002.
From the thematic point of view, the subject is related to those works that depict interiors with waiting figures, such as Ante-room, 1993 (cat. no. E.076). Pinacotheca had occupied a former nineteenth-century warehouse, but here the interior appears of indeterminate date. What characterizes the space is its anonymous emptiness – an appropriate setting for a Kafkaesque drama of a man being made to wait for something unspecified to occur.
The composition was basically resolved in the first state, but was taken through a series of tonal refinements with a burnishing tool to the third state, before the addition of drypoint accents in the fourth and final state.
The work was commissioned by the Australian Print Workshop for its major fundraising effort, the exhibition Impressions 2016, which included prints by over 160 artists.
- Keywords
- Building interior, Franz Kafka, Pinacotheca, Melbourne, Solitary male
- URL
- https://catalogue.rickamor.com.au/works/intaglio/the-waiting-room/
Record last updated 21/01/2022