Etching. A suburban view from a street on the crest of a hill, looking towards the West Gate Bridge, one of whose tall pillars is at the centre of the composition. The trees planted along the street are bare. There is a light pole at right and a telegraph pole in the left distance. The subject is etched in a loose, sketchy manner.
Areas of open-bite etching have been added to many elements of the composition, including the pillar of the West Gate Bridge seen at the centre of the image, the trees, the distant shore, and the sky, which is now filled with sketchily etched clouds. A band of horizontal lines has been added above the horizon.
Burnishing has been applied in the left centre area of the sky, and immediately above and below the dark horizon.
The entire plate has been scraped back and burnished to remove the open-bite etching applied in earlier states, and the image is now considerably lighter.
- Catalogue Number
- E.020
- Title and Date
- Western suburb 1990
- Description of Featured Image
- A suburban view from a street on the crest of a hill, looking towards the West Gate Bridge, one of whose tall pillars is at the centre of the composition. The trees planted along the street are bare. There is a light pole at right and a telegraph pole in the left distance.
- Where Made
- Dunmoochin, Cottles Bridge
- Medium Category and Technique
- Intaglio Print: Etching, open-bite etching, burnishing and scraper on copper
- Support
- Wove paper. Identified papers: Papers mentioned in notes on this work in Amor’s intaglio record books: BFK Rives and Fabriano papers.
- Dimensions
-
Image size: 145 x 200 mm
Matrix size: 150 x 205 mm - Artist’s Record Number
- RAE.16
- Printer(s) and Workshop(s)
- All impressions printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio, Cottles Bridge.
- Summary Edition Information
- Seven states. No edition.
- Collections
- State Library of Victoria, Melbourne: seven state impressions, numbered 1 through 7.
- Comment
The inner western suburbs of Melbourne have traditionally been one of the main working-class areas of the city, dominated by manufacturing industries. Amor has always been drawn to these often bleak, unbeautiful areas, partly because he is interested in the whole variety of landscapes close to him, and partly for the artistic challenge they present. In taking up this neglected subject matter, he has provided an unusual record of some of the fast-changing, or disappearing, suburban landscapes of Melbourne.
While his plein-air drawings, watercolours and paintings are accurate depictions of the view before him, Amor usually takes liberties with his etchings, which, however, are accurate in describing the spirit of a place, if not always its exact appearance. In the case of E.020, though, the etching closely follows a pencil drawing done on the spot on 3 August 1989, but the view is reversed in the print.
E.020 depicts an area in Footscray (some five kilometres west of Melbourne’s city centre), with the West Gate Bridge in the middle distance.
Although Amor’s intaglio record books refer to an edition of ten for this print, the plate was never in fact editioned.
- Keywords
- Footscray (Melbourne), Landscape - industrial, Melbourne, Streetscape, West Gate Bridge, Melbourne
- URL
- https://catalogue.rickamor.com.au/works/intaglio/western-suburb/
Record last updated 09/02/2021