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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Barry & Anne Pang Collection
• Sale Date:
  18 Oct 2015 ~ 2.30pm
• Lot #:
  29
• Lot Description:
  Rick Amor
  (born 1948)
  The City 6am 1989-90
  oil on linen
  129.5 x 162.5 cm
  signed and dated lower left: RICK AMOR 90; titled and dated verso: The City 6am DEC 89
• Provenance:
  Niagara Galleries, Melbourne (bears label attached verso); Private Collection, Melbourne; Deutscher-Menzies, Melbourne, 2 September 2003, lot 23; Private Collection, Sydney; Deutscher and Hackett, Australian & International Fine Art, Melbourne, 9 May 2007, lot 22
• Exhibited:
  Australian Contemporary Art Fair 2, Niagara Galleries booth, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, 21-24 June 1990, cat.10; The City and Beyond, La Trobe University Gallery, July 1990, then touring east coast regional galleries, cat. 2 (bears label attached verso)
• References:
  Gary Catalano, ÔThe Challenge of Depicting Life as it Really is', The Age, 1 August 1990
• Notes:
  Rick Amor's paintings are filled with mystery and tantalising clues. Poets are naturally drawn to his work and none more so than Amor's late friend and collaborator Gary Catalano. The pair met in the 1980s when Catalano was working as a newspaper art critic and they subsequently collaborated on a variety of projects culminating in the monograph The Solitary Watcher, which remains a seminal text when discussing the artist's work. Shortly after their first meeting, Catalano wrote that ÔAmor's work has long been distinctive because of its mood. (He is an artist) whose work can reach the totally uninstructed viewer É (and) is able to do this because its subject matter is drawn from the world in which most of us live. On one of its many levels, his art is nothing more or less than an expression of faith in the artistic possibilities of the common or everyday scene.'1 In a similar manner to Jeffrey Smart's urban views, there is an unsettling atmosphere pervading Amor's paintings though, unlike Smart's preference for strong light and colour, Amor favours twilight under lowering skies. His figures are often solitary but even if there is another in the vicinity, their relationship is never defined. Their habitat is within the confines of a vaguely recognisable city where elements of classical architecture squat next to 1960s banality next to trees pruned into weird shapes by over zealous arborists; and all these elements may be found in The City 6am. Within this shadowed setting, a short woman leads a lumpen figure hurriedly down an alley. To the left, a male figure looms over a parapet observing the others. Darkened windows give hints of other observers who are otherwise occupied with their own hidden activities. As Amor has noted, ÔI've always thought that behind the faade of buildings all sorts of mysterious things go on. I suppose it's from my childhood and reading Kafka. I like to suggest that behind prosaic realities something else is lurking.'2 The City 6am is one of a clutch of paintings inspired by locations around Spring Street at the eastern end of Melbourne's CBD but Amor stresses that the final scenes are not Ôtopographically true' having been combined from photographs and memory, then collaged into a dystopian whole. He has also cited the influence of cinema, particularly film noir.3 Even the title is laden and portentous. This eastern end of Melbourne is rich in memory for the artist. As a young boy living in 1950s Frankston, journeys to the city were rare but made vivid by his father's tales of dark deeds in the past, one of these being the awful story of 12 year old Alma Tirtschke who was murdered in the Eastern Markets in 1921 (a crime which also informed Charles Blackman's Schoolgirl series). Gun Alley, where her body was found, has now been obliterated by the footprint of Nauru House but the subterranean passages under this building are just as alienating, harsh and foreboding as the market alleys that preceded it. Amor recognises this dichotomy and builds his paintings around the idea that single sites can hold multiple stories and interpretations, occupied by figures who Ôare all meant to stimulate our curiosity and make us reflect on the secretive aspects of urban life.'4 1 Gary Catalano, ÔA harsh view of the city as a fearful labyrinth', The Age, Melbourne, 27 June 1990 2 Rick Amor, 1994, quoted in: Gary Catalano, The Solitary Watcher: Rick Amor and his art, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, 2001, p.149 3 See: Robert Lindsay, Rick Amor: Standing in the shadows, McClelland Gallery+Sculpture Park, Victoria, 2005, p.11 4 Gary Catalano, op cit., p.108
• Estimate:
  A$100,000 - 150,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.