Rick Amor

Rick Amor
Born	Richard William Amor (1948-03-03)3 March 1948 Frankston, Australia
Nationality	Australian
Education	National Gallery School, Melbourne
Known for	Painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaker
Awards	McClelland Sculpture Award 2007

250px Old Seas
Artist	Rick Amor
Year	2004 (2004)
Material	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	81 cm × 100 cm (32 in × 39 in)

Rick Amor (born 3 March 1948) is an Australian artist and figurative painter. He was an Official War Artist.

Life and work

Rick Amor was born in Frankston, Victoria, Australia. He has a certificate in art from the Caulfield Institute of Technology, and Associate Diploma in Painting from the National Gallery School, Melbourne.

He began exhibiting at the Joseph Brown gallery in 1974. He has entered the Archibald Prize at least 11 times and been exhibited nine times. He has been the recipient of several Australia Council studio residencies, allowing him to work in London, New York and Barcelona. In 1999 he was one of the first Australian artists to be appointed as the Official War Artist to East Timor by the Australian War Memorial, and the first since the end of the Vietnam War.

Amor has held over 64 solo exhibitions since first exhibiting at Joseph Brown Gallery in 1974 and has shown annually at Niagara Galleries since 1983. In 2013 a 30th Anniversary exhibition is being held at Niagara Galleries during the month of August. A major survey exhibition of his paintings was curated by McClelland Gallery in 1990 and toured various regional galleries in Victoria and South Australia throughout 1990 and 1991. An exhibition of his prints toured various regional galleries in Victoria and Tasmania 1993-4. In 1993 another exhibition mounted by Bendigo Art Gallery toured Australia.

He was interviewed in the 2005 Peter Berner documentary about the Archibald Prize called Loaded Brush.

Amor's most recent exhibitions include Rick Amor: From Study to Painting at Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum, Victoria and his 30th Anniversary Exhibition at Niagara Galleries in 2013 and an exhibition at the Australian Print Workshop in 2012. He was also involved in group shows Blue Chip XV: The Collectors' Exhibition at Niagara Galleries and the Small Sculpture Fair at McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery in 2013.

Major texts on Amor's work have been published in the last fifteen years, including Gary Catalano’s biography, The Solitary Watcher: Rick Amor and his Art, published by The Miegunyah Press in 2001,and Gavin Fry’s richly illustrated monograph, Rick Amor, published by The Beagle Press in 2008.

250px The Winter
Artist	Rick Amor
Year	1997 (1997)
Material	Oil on canvas

Paintings

His work borrows heavily from the pictorial inheritance of Symbolism and Surrealism. There is always a poetic mystery and sense of menace, even in apparently journalistic work, such as the East Timor paintings. His major themes are the solitary watcher, figures at twilight, the vast emptiness of urban spaces and quiet mysterious interiors. His works resonate with powerful symbolism, and his landscapes in particular are full of disquieting atmosphere, with objects bathed in half light and shadows.

Sebastian Smee, a reviewer of Amor's 2008 retrospective exhibition at Heide Museum of Modern Art, concluded that he was

convinced not only of Amor's singularity in contemporary Australian art – there is really nobody like him – but of his importance. His commitment is unmistakable, his intelligence acute, and his best images impossible to forget.

Sculpture

Since the early 1990s, he has also incorporated sculpture in his repertoire, generally bronze figures which he moulds at home, then has cast in foundry using the lost wax method. The National Gallery, Canberra, has purchased a two-metre-high bronze sculpture of a dog – "a made-up dog, a survivor".

(In its previous location, it is now located in the Sculpture Garden)
250px The Dog
Artist	Rick Amor
Year	2004 (2004)
Material	Bronze
Subject	A dog
Dimensions	100.0 cm × 90 cm × 170 cm (39.4 in × 35 in × 67 in)
Location	Australian National Gallery, Canberra
Website	http://cs.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=130946

In November 2007 Rick Amor won the prestigious $100,000 McClelland Sculpture Award for his haunting work Relic.

It's a relic, it's a distant memory. I don't know where it came from, from the unconscious. It's not meant to be an Anubis or any Egyptian deity, it's just something that popped up.

250px Relic
Artist	Rick Amor
Year	2006 (2006)
Type	Bronze, cor-ten steel
Dimensions	204. cm × 62 cm × 72 cm (80 in × 24 in × 28 in)
Location	McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park, Langwarrin, VIC

artsACT has commissioned a version of Relic for Canberra located near the intersection of Childers Street and University Avenue.[1]. images

Collections

Rick Amor is represented in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, the National Portrait Gallery, the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery and numerous state, regional and university collections throughout Australia.

Awards

• 2007 The McClelland Award, McClelland Gallery+Sculpture Park, Victoria
• 2000 Awarded the Visual Arts/Craft Board London Studio, England
• 1995 Awarded the Visual Arts/Craft Board Green Street Studio, New York
• 1991 Awarded the Visual Arts/Craft Board Barcelona Studio, Spain
• 1989 National Australia Bank Art Prize
• 1987 Castlemaine Drawing Prize (Second Prize)
• 1980 Artist in Residence, Victorian Trades Hall Council
• 1975 Visual Arts Board Grant
• 1968 National Gallery Traveling Scholarship
• 1967 National Gallery Drawing Prize (shared)
• Hugh Ramsey Portrait Prize

References

• Gavin Fry (2008) Rick Amor, Beagle Press. ISBN 0-7241-0233-7, ISBN 9780724102334.
• Gary Catalano (2001) The Solitary Watcher: Rick Amor and His Art, Melbourne University Publishing. ISBN 0-522-84948-2.
• Davida Allen, Rick Amor, Stephanie Burns et al. (2000) The Australian Drawing, Australian National University.

External links

• Niagara Galleries
• The artist's own web page
• Art Right Now
• Making Portraits
• Rick Amor at Australian Art
• Work in the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
• A retrospective exhibition at the Heide Museum of Modern Art
• Images of 60 prints by Rick Amor
• Liverpool Street Gallery
• A single mind: Rick Amor 22 March – 13 July 2008, Heide Museum of Modern Art. Education Kit: Part A pdf, Part B pdf, Part c pdf