Rick Amor is one of Australia’s most collectible artists, revered for his psychologically charged landscapes that transform ordinary places into scenes of quiet tension and reflection.

Painted during his 1991 residency in Barcelona, this work marks a rare moment in Amor’s career when his moody, architectural vision was transposed onto a European setting. Fascinated by the city of his hero Pablo Picasso, Amor sought not its postcard beauty but its edges — the industrial outskirts where ruins, factories, and faded palms meet under a brooding sky.

Critic Robert Rooney likened Outlying Districts, Barcelona to “a 19th-century artist’s vision of industry’s first satanic intrusion into the landscape, ” * evoking the eighteenth-century ideal of the picturesque — a balance of beauty and sublimity. Here, Amor’s compositional mastery and restrained palette achieve a modern equivalent: a landscape at once classical and contemporary, poetic and foreboding.

With major exhibitions at leading institutions including Heide Museum of Modern Art and the National Portrait Gallery, Amor’s place in Australian art is firmly established. For collectors of significant contemporary landscape painting, Outlying Districts, Barcelona offers a powerful convergence of place, atmosphere, and psychological depth — a remarkable work from one of Australia’s modern masters.

* Rooney, R., Theres No Criticism Like Self-criticism, The Weekend Australian, 1992, quoted in Catalano, G., op. cit., p.127

Rick AMOR (1948 - )
'Outlying Districts, Barcelona,' 1992
oil on linen
Image Size: 152 x 198 cm
Dimensions: 167 x 211 x 5 cm
Signed: signed and dated lower left Rick Amor '92, dated and inscribed verso: Outlying Districts/ Barcelona/ 152 X 198/ Jan Feb 92
Comes with Letter of Provenance

Exhibited: Rick Amor, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 26 April - 16 May 1992, cat.9 (illus. Exhibition catalogue, p.11). Blue chip XXIV: the Collectors Exhibition, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 9 March - 2 April 2022, cat.21 (illus. Exhibition catalogue, pp.25, 62). Catalano, G., The Solitary Watcher: Rick Amor and his Art, the Miegunyah press, Melbourne University press, Melbourne, 2001, pp.124, 127 (illus. P.126).

Related works: Outlying Districts 1991, gouache on paper, 45 x 60 cm, Art Gallery of New South Wales collection, Sydney, purchased 1996.

Condition: Excellent

(c) Rick Amor / Copyright Agency