Elizabeth Prior, Yarra River, Melbourne, painting, 1976
Summary
Over a career that began in 1952, Elizabeth Prior (1929–2018) was awarded a number of prizes for her large, well-composed landscape paintings, such as this one. ‘Melbourne on Yarra’ was purchased by the City Melbourne through the Lord Mayor’s Acquisitive Art Award in 1976, the year Prior painted it. Like her ‘Melbourne Skyline’, which is also held in the Art and Heritage Collection, this painting, in which the city is viewed from the banks of the Yarra, is defined by the artist’s confident use of colour and an almost gestural form. The rich colours and bold lines of her brushwork convey both an energy and urgency in the composition.
Prior studied painting under the private tutelage of artists including Ian Bow, Rollo Thompson and William Frater, and first exhibited in 1962, in a group show. During her long career, she was a member of the Victorian Artists’ Society and vice-president of the Contemporary Art Society, Melbourne, and her work was celebrated through around 18 solo exhibitions, the first of which was in 1968.
