Bringing in the Winner, Flemington 1978

Summary

Elizabeth Prior began painting in 1952, studying under the private tutelage of artists including Ian Bow, Rollo Thompson and William Frater until 1966. She was known for her large, expressive landscape compositions – many painted en plein air – and during her long career her work was recognised through some 18 solo exhibitions, the first of these held in 1968. The Art and Heritage Collection holds three paintings by Prior (1929–2018), all of which focus on Melbourne, her hometown. Acquired through the Lord Mayor’s Acquisitive Art Award, Prior’s ‘Bringing in the Winner, Flemington’ came into the collection in 1978. Adopting an almost disorientating aerial perspective against a tilted flat field, the painting depicts horses and jockeys milling post-race, the stewards gathering the winners to lead them from the track. Virtually since European settlement of Port Phillip, Flemington has been fundamental to Australian racing culture, the earliest meet taking place in 1840, two decades before the Melbourne Cup was first run. ‘The race that stops the nation’, as the Melbourne Cup soon came to be known, has since been instrumental in plotting the city on the international sporting map.