James Bartholomew (Bart) Cummings OAM (1927-2015), thoroughbred racehorse trainer, was the son of an Adelaide trainer. He began his involvement with the Melbourne Cup as strapper for winner Comic Court in 1950. Having gained his own trainer’s licence in 1953, he went on to earn the sobriquet ‘the Cups King’ by taking out the Melbourne Cup twelve times: with Light Fingers (1965), Galilee (1966), Red Handed (1967) Think Big (1974 and 1975), Gold and Black (1977), Hyperno (1979), Kingston Rule (1990) Let’s Elope (1991), Saintly (1996), Rogan Josh (1999) and Viewed (2008). He celebrated nearly 7000 wins that included five Cox Plates, seven Caulfield Cups and four Golden Slippers. In 1974 he became the first trainer whose horses won a million dollars in a season. The ABC Sportsman of the Year in 1975, Cummings was designated a National Living Treasure in 1988.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2002
© Bryan Westwood/Copyright Agency, 2024
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
As Bryan Westwood’s portrait of Brian Dunlop hangs adjacent to Brian Dunlop’s portrait of the philanthropist Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE, we see the artist of one work as the subject of the other.
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