Private Commissions
A portrait of your horse, at life scale.
A commission is a painting of your horse as they truly are, their conformation, their carriage, the way they actually stand. I paint horses in their natural poses, without riders or handlers.
I have been around horses since I was a little girl, studying them my whole life without realising I was doing it. How a horse carries itself. What it does with its head when it is thinking. The difference between one standing and one posing. My husband and I breed thoroughbreds in rural Victoria and have sold yearlings through the Magic Millions, including a Redoute's Choice colt. None of it was training. It was just the life.
Wherever I can, I take the photographs myself, and that part is its own art form. It is where the painting actually begins: the angle, the light, the moment the horse moves. Get it wrong and no amount of painting will rescue it. Get it right and the work is half made before I mix a colour.
“I always begin with the eye. It is where the soul is.”
Nicole Slater
I take on a small number of commissions each year, so that every painting is given the time it needs. I answer every enquiry personally.
Commission Prices
Measurements are height by width.
- 1.2 x 1.8 m$33,000
- 1.5 x 1.8 m$34,500
- 2.4 x 1.8 m$36,000
- 3 x 1.8 m$38,000
- 2.4 x 5 m$75,000
Prices are for a single horse. Additional horses within the same painting are quoted individually.
These are prices for commissioned work, painted to order for you. Paintings already completed and available now are listed under Originals.
What the Price Covers
The prices above are for the finished painting and include GST and stretching. Your painting is stretched by Chapman and Bailey in Melbourne, and I arrange and pay for that myself, so it never appears on your bill.
Framing and delivery are arranged separately with Chapman and Bailey. They quote each job on its own and you settle with them directly. I don't act as a middleman on any part of it, so you specify exactly the finish you want and pay their price for it, with nothing added in between.
Materials and Making
Belgian linen, hand-primed. Every painting is made on Belgian linen, primed by hand in my studio and stapled flat to the studio wall so the surface is true. Linen is recognised as the finest natural fibre for artists' canvas. Its fibres are longer and stronger than any other, so it holds its tension across a large span instead of slackening the way cotton does over time. It is the support chosen for paintings meant to last generations.
Matisse acrylics. I use Matisse, made in Australia by Derivan, a third-generation family company and the first Australian manufacturer of artist-quality acrylic paint. The colours carry a high pigment load and are rated ASTM lightfastness I and II, the archival standard, so the painting you hang holds its colour rather than fading with the years. I mix my own colours to match the horse, so the exact colour on your painting is a one off and will never appear on another.
Stretcher bars. Most works are stretched over braced pine by Chapman and Bailey. Anything beyond roughly four metres is stretched over aluminium stretcher bars imported from Italy, which hold a true, flat plane at spans where timber would eventually warp or twist.
Framing. Many clients choose a shadow-box frame, also known as box framing, where the painting sits inside a slim timber surround with a narrow reveal around the edge, so the work appears to float within it. Chapman and Bailey offer a range of timbers and finishes, and you choose yours with them directly.
Realistic or Abstract
“Sometimes people get in touch wanting me to paint a beloved horse that has passed away. We shed a tear together as we go through photos of the horse, then I work to give them something special so they can cherish that horse's memory.”
Nicole Slater
I work in two forms, realistic and abstract. The abstract is a finished work in its own right, and it is also the sketch for the realistic version.
The realistic paintings are usually for someone with a horse they treasure. Some want a horse brought back to life. Others are honouring one after a Melbourne Cup or a Group One. The horse does not have to be a champion. Plenty of them are rescues, or simply part of the family.
The abstract paintings tend to go to homes looking for something different, something that works with the colours already in the room and gives people something to talk about. They often appeal to people who are not horse people at all.
How a Commission Works
1. Your horse. Send me high-resolution photographs of your horse in the pose you have in mind, along with your preferred size and whether you are drawn to a realistic or a more abstract treatment. If you don't have images you're happy with, I can photograph your horse myself. The fee depends on location and travel.
2. Your quote. I'll come back to you with a firm price and confirm your place in the year. A 50% deposit secures the commission, with the balance due on completion.
3. In the studio. I allow one to three months to complete a painting, depending on whether the work is realistic or abstract. Realistic pieces take the longest.
4. Stretching and box framing. Once the painting is finished it goes to Chapman and Bailey to be stretched onto its frame, which is included in your price and settled by me. From there you work with them directly on how the piece is finished, from the frame style to the timber and colour, either on your own or alongside your interior designer. They quote the framing separately and invoice you direct.
5. Delivery. Transport is arranged once the framing is complete, quoted for your location and paid directly. Most of my work travels with IAS Fine Art Logistics, who specialise in fine art handling, custom crating and storage. Your painting is fully insured in transit, so it arrives exactly as it left the studio.
Commissions Travelling Overseas
Paintings heading abroad are rolled and packed in a PVC tube rather than sent stretched, which is far safer over long distances. You would then arrange a framer locally to complete the stretching and framing, and I'm happy to brief them on exactly what the work needs. As with local commissions, freight and framing are quoted and paid separately, and the painting is fully insured in transit.
Private Collections
Works held in private collections in Australia, the United States, Argentina, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. Several collectors have returned for three, four and five works, and some of those collections are private and not shown here.
For Arrowfield Stud
Redoute's Choice
Champion Australian sire, 1996 to 2019
Redoute's Choice stood at Arrowfield for nineteen seasons and changed Australian breeding while he was there. Three times champion sire. One hundred and sixty-three stakes winners. A yearling of his once sold for five million dollars, an Australian record at the time.
John Messara said of him simply that he was a gentleman, and that losing him felt like losing a relative.
Painting him for Arrowfield meant something to me personally. I bred and sold a Redoute's Choice colt through the Magic Millions sale myself. You spend years around a bloodline before you ever get to put it on linen.
"Nicole's work captures the horse in its truest form, its power, movement, and spirit. She conveys not merely likeness, but the very essence of the horse on canvas."
Alice & Paul Messara, Arrowfield Stud
For Katelyn and James McDonald
Romantic Warrior
The highest-earning racehorse in history
Romantic Warrior has won more prize money than any racehorse in history. Fifteen Group One wins across four countries, four Hong Kong Cups in a row, and the first Hong Kong horse ever to win a Cox Plate.
James McDonald rode him twenty times and won on nineteen. This painting was commissioned after their fourth straight Hong Kong Cup together.
He was retired on the second of September this year. I am glad the painting was already hanging in their home by then.
"James and I entrusted Nicole to paint our superstar racehorse Romantic Warrior. Nicole had free rein to paint and delivered an extraordinary piece that sits in the heart of our home. We adore this piece of art and Nicole is a dream to work with."
Katelyn & James McDonald, three-time Longines World's Best Jockey
Lyric
1800 x 3000 mm
Three metres across, and one of my favourite paintings to date.
For a private collector
Rain, Beau, Sunny and The Real Deal
Four works, in a private collection
Four paintings for one collector, who has asked not to be named. They hang together in a gallery he built at his own home, which is the only place they have ever been seen.
He came back for the second, then the third, then the fourth. Anyone can commission a painting once. It is the ones after it that tell you what the first one meant.
For a private collector
Blue, Jade, Willow, Molly and Boston
Five works, in a private collection
Five paintings for one collector, who has asked not to be named. She holds more of my work than almost anyone, and the collection is private, so there are no photographs of it here.
She bought them one at a time, over years, for different rooms and different reasons. That is how a collection is actually built.
For Val and Gerry Ryan AO
Americain
Winner of the 150th Melbourne Cup, 3000 x 1800 mm
Americain won the 150th Melbourne Cup in 2010, the first French-trained horse ever to do it, on only his second Australian start.
Gérald Mossé brought him three deep, ran down the favourite So You Think in the straight and drew clear by two and a half lengths.
He started thirty-four times and won eleven, for just under $6 million. Before the Cup he had taken the Prix Kergorlay in France and the Geelong Cup. He came back the next spring, carried 58 kilos as favourite in the 2011 Melbourne Cup and ran fourth, then won the Moonee Valley Cup and the Zipping Classic and was named Australian Champion Stayer. He was trained by Alain de Royer-Dupré and later by David Hayes.
I painted him for Val and Gerry Ryan, who raced him. The Melbourne Cup is the one race every Australian knows, and the 150th running is the one they will still be talking about in a hundred years.
"Nicole brings horses to life through a canvas, stunning work."
Gerry Ryan AO
Gerry Ryan founded Jayco in 1975 on a ten thousand dollar loan and built it into the largest caravan manufacturer in the country. He owns the Jayco AlUla cycling team, part-owns the Melbourne Storm and the Southside Flyers, and owns the theatrical company Global Creatures. He received an OAM in 2000, was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2024, and was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2026.
For Tom Magnier, Coolmore Stud
Justify
American Triple Crown winner, 2018
Justify won the American Triple Crown in 2018 without ever having been beaten, and without having raced as a two-year-old. No horse had managed that since 1882. He went from his first start to the Belmont in under four months, then retired unbeaten.
Six starts, six wins, $3.2 million, all of it inside sixteen weeks. He took the Kentucky Derby by two and a half lengths, the Preakness by half a length in fog so thick the crowd could not see the back of the track, and the Belmont by one and three quarters.
He was trained by Bob Baffert and ridden by Mike Smith. He was American Horse of the Year for 2018 and went into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 2024, the first year he was eligible.
This one was commissioned for Tom Magnier of Coolmore for a Magic Millions event. It then went somewhere I never expected. Ferrari approved it for display in one of their showrooms in Italy.
Justify stands at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Kentucky, so the horse and the painting ended up with the same family.
A horse that fast, hanging in a room full of Ferraris. That still makes me laugh.
For Lorilie Cunningham, Horseshoe Hill
Light Up the Room
1800 x 3000 mm, 2025
Horseshoe Hill sits in the Sunshine Coast hinterland and was crowned Queensland's best home of 2025. Grand Designs Australia followed the build and filmed me painting this one for it.
Three metres of black ground with a single horse coming out of it. In a house made almost entirely of glass, the room needed something that held still.
"Nicole's artwork gives me unbridled joy daily, it's not just a painting of my beloved horse but a true representative of her soul through her beautiful eye."
Lorilie Cunningham
For Elizabeth Donald, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE
Desert Spirits
4965 x 2425 mm, 2024
Desert Spirits.
Desert Spirits hangs in the lobby of the Sofitel Ras Al Khaimah Al Hamra Beach Resort. Nearly five metres of horses coming out of the dark.
It stayed in my studio for a year before it went. I painted over it three times, because I wanted to be certain of it. When it was finally installed we took the whole family to the UAE with it.
Painting for that part of the world carries a weight you feel while you work. The horse means something there that it does not mean anywhere else, and you are aware of it with every stroke.
"Nicole's artwork is proudly displayed in one of our Ras Al Khaimah hotels, a place where the horse holds profound cultural meaning. Her ability to capture its soul and strength is both timeless and deeply resonant."
Elizabeth Donald, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE
For Katie Page and Gerry Harvey, Magic Millions
Coco
2100 x 2100 mm, 2024
Coco was painted as the centrepiece media wall for the Magic Millions Polo and Showjumping at Pacific Fair in January 2024, commissioned by Katie Page and Gerry Harvey.
Every photograph taken at that event was taken in front of her. Two point one metres square, which is what you need when a painting has to hold its own against a crowd.
"To view Nic's art is to witness her ethereal affinity with the horse. Her art commands the same silent awe as the animals themselves."
Katie Page, Co-owner, Magic Millions
For Nacho Figueras and Delfina Blaquier
Lorana and Valentina
Two works, 1200 x 1800 mm each, 2024
Two paintings for Nacho Figueras and Delfina Blaquier, for their homes in Argentina and Miami. I visited their polo facilities before I started either one.
Polo ponies are not thoroughbreds. They are built differently, they carry themselves differently, and you cannot fake having watched them work.
"The beautiful solo exhibition by the talented Nicole Slater, who also portrayed some of our horses back in Argentina."
Nacho Figueras
"I am so honoured to be standing here with you. We have paintings in our home, and I love the beautiful way it portrays our horse, it's so her."
Delfina Blaquier
Lorana, Limited Edition Print Valentina, Limited Edition Print
For Rosemont Stud
Brooklyn Hustle
1800 x 1200 mm, 2022
Painted for Rosemont Stud.
At 1.8 by 1.2 metres this is a small canvas by my standards, and it taught me something. Not every horse needs five metres. Some of them fill whatever you give them.
American Quarter Horse, cutting
MetallicToy
1795 x 1520 mm, 2025
A cutting horse, and a quarter horse rather than a thoroughbred. A different animal to paint entirely. Heavier through the shoulder, lower to the ground, built to stop and turn rather than to run in a straight line.
MetallicToy has been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
My husband and I learnt our horsemanship from Chris Cox, at his place in Texas, and I have painted western horses with him in the United States. It is the reason I understand how a horse like this one carries itself, and the reason we were able to break in our own rescued horses at home.
"Nicole's work is so detailed and precise she makes our equine friend look so real. I am a fan of her art."
Chris Cox, World Champion Horseman
Chris Cox is the only horseman to have won Road to the Horse four times, in 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2015. Born in Florida and raised on a cattle station in Australia, he now runs his ranch near Mineral Wells in Texas and was inducted into the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2015.
Commission Your Own
I answer every commission enquiry personally. Send me photographs of your horse and the size you have in mind, and I will come back to you with a quote.