Architecture, Art and Photography
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The Solitary Watcher

Rick Amor and His Art

Gary Catalano

This book focuses on the works of Melbourne artist Rick Amor. It traces the development of Amor’s art from his earliest years as an artist, to the present.

Opinion

‘The Solitary Watcher is an object lesson in the sort of book that probably needs to be written about every important artist, novelist and poet.’ (Meanjin, 2003, vol 62, no 1)

‘Adopting what is sometimes called a “poetic” response to works of art, Catalano’s book is an object lesson in clarity of analysis and, dare one say, thoughtfulness. It is not just that his prose is such a delight to read, but that the author keeps the balance between the discussion of technique, subject matter and contenmt so nicely poised . . . The Solitary Watcher is the most illuminating, clearly written monograph on a recent Australian painter I’ve read in the past decade.’ (Christopher Heathcote, www.smh.com.au, 11 September 2001)

About this Title

Rick Amor—painter, printmaker and sculptor—is one of Australia’s most distinguished contemporary artists. Now in his fifties, he has a very significant body of work behind him, having explored a range of styles and exhibited regularly over the past thirty years. In 2000 he went to East Timor as an official war artist appointed by the Australian War Memorial.

Amor is, perhaps, the only significant artist of his generation who has never been tempted by abstraction. In his commitment to figurative art he is the heir of the Antipodeans—he studied at the National Gallery School under John Brack in the 1960s—and has long held what were, until recently, unfashionable ideas about modernism. His work is now attracting renewed attention.

The Solitary Watcher is the first full-length work on Rick Amor. Gary Catalano writes of the landscapes of Amor’s childhood that haunt his later paintings; of Amor’s close friendship with Joan and Daryl Lindsay; his long relationship with the labour movement; and his professional attachment to older artists such as Clifton Pugh and Ian Armstrong.

The main focus is on Amor’s paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures. The Solitary Watcher offers a detailed and coherent examination of the development of Amor’s art, from his earliest years as an artist to the present.

Amor’s paintings of Melbourne from the suburban Frankston of his childhood to the narrow lanes of the inner city now rival those of Albert Tucker in their resonance and authority, and have seeped into the consciousness of the general public to acquire the status of defining images.

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Acknowledgements

1 Past and Present
2 A Town by the Sea
3 The Reverse is Always True
4 A Home in the World
5 The Union that Make us Strong
6 Figures in a Garden
7 Changes of Scene
8 The Poetries of Place
9 Childhood Revisited
10 Bacelona and New York
11 First and Third Person
12 Melbourne

Timor Postscript
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Works Discussed
General Index

About the Author

Gary Catalano was born in Brisbane in 1947 and educated in Sydney. A well-known poet and critic, he wrote widely on both Australian art and literature since the 1970s and worked as art critic on the Age from 1985 to 1990. His Selected Poems 1973–1992 was published in 1993. The Solitary Watcher was Gary’s thirteenth book.

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978-0-522-84948-6