Award Ceremony at St. James’s Palace, London On Thursday 17 February 2000, HRH The Prince of Wales, Patron of Our World in the Year 2000, hosted the Award Ceremony for The Winsor & Newton Worldwide Millennium Painting Competition. The 350 specially invited guests included 10 of the 12 winning artists who had travelled from all over the world to be there. Ambassadors and Cultural Attachés from the winning countries, representatives of the world’s media, and organisers of the individual national competitions also attended. The event took place in the magnificent State Apartments of St. James’s Palace, including the Throne Room, where the international judging of the competition had taken place eight months earlier. The winning paintings and other selected works were displayed on easels throughout the Palace. The Prince of Wales first met organisers of the competition and exhibition and was shown a painting, Eternal Amazon II, by the First Prize Winner, Ramón Piaguaje, which had been purchased by Winsor & Newton and donated for sale in aid of The Prince’s Foundation. Winsor & Newton also donated an Artists’ Oil Colour Millennium Chest, which the Prince examined with keen interest. The Prince was then introduced to each of the winning artists in front of their pictures, also meeting members of their families. The artists spoke to him about why they had entered the competition and the ideas behind their pictures. The Prince was especially interested to find out about their painting techniques. The Prince was then introduced to the five winners of the competition in Britain. The Award Ceremony started with a speech by Steve Pleune, Managing Director of Winsor & Newton, in which he thanked the many people around the world who had helped to organise the competitions in individual countries and all the thousands of artists who had participated. He gave special thanks to The Prince of Wales for all his support, and particularly for chairing the International Judging Panel and for hosting the judging and Award Ceremony at St. James’s Palace. The Prince then presented each of the winning artists with their certificates. There was tremendous applause from the guests and great interest from the assembled media when Ramón Piaguaje stepped forward to receive the First Prize certificate. The Prince then gave a speech in which he congratulated all the winning artists and commented on how much he had enjoyed being involved in a global project of such vision which had enabled artists to express their thoughts and feelings about the future of the planet.

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