1956

A panel of three judges chose the sole winner of the inaugural Kelliher Art Competition from the 201 entries for the best oil painting by a New Zealand artist to paint "the visible aspects of New Zealand's landscape and coastal scenes in a realistic and traditional way". The £500 prize is the equivalent of around $25,000 today. Sir Henry Kelliher presented the painting, Summer in the Mokauiti Valley by Leonard Mitchel [No 00] to the National Art Gallery (now the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa), as he did for the subsequent three first prize winners.