Wellington Boy Winner Of International Art Award

Press, Volume C, Issue 29505, 5 May 1961, Page 14

Wellington Boy Winner Of International Art Award

(New Zealand Press Association)

TNWAXMXrQW, May 4. | Dark-eyed Michael Phanoulas, aged eight, of Edgehill, Wellington, has won a children’s international art award in the most unassuming of circumstances. His mother did not even know he had entered. Casually, he handed her a letter one day recently, sent to him at Clyde Quay School, Wellington, containing the news. New Zealand’s High Commissioner to India, Str Guy Powles, was the sender. Michael had received the award, together with three others for New Zealand children, from the Prime Minister of India, Mr Nehru.

i The contest is the Shankar Children’s International Competition for painting and for literary effort, Which originated in New Delhi in 1949, and attracts thousands of entries from many countries. Mr Nehru gives an award to the first-prize winner in each section, Michael having won the section for children of seven to eight. The Jawaharlal Nehru trophy sent to Michael is a handsome brass plaque with a design carried out in silver and bronze. Michael has also been sent a winner’s certificate, with an enclosed photograph of Mr Nehru handing the New Zealand prizes to Sir Guy Powles. Born in California, Michael lived there for three years and a half before coming with his parents to New Zealand. Other New Zealand prizewinners in the same competition were Barbara Worboys, aged 10, of Wadestown School, and Mary Wood, aged 12. of Lyall Bay School in the painting section, and Heather Fergus, aged 12, of Khandallah, in the literary section.