Country Races

“Country Races” is an exceptional example from Pro’s best-known series, awash with figures, horses, bar, and lean-to buildings. Redolent with colour in the blue hills and green grass of a lush season, racegoers’ clothing, jockeys’ colours’ and saddles, his keen observation of life in and around his city of Broken Hill renders a pictorial narrative full of colour and warmth with a charming sense of laconic humour.

A big event around Australia and none less so in the outback, whole communities from the surrounding areas gather together for the event of the year. Here, with a few succinct brushstrokes, Pro masterly depicts the amateur nature of outback racing, bringing to life the triumph and tragedy of the theatre of the race meeting and the accompanying challenges of racing on a rural dirt track.