Victoria Clark, of Evandale, and Nigel and Helen Davies, of Launceston.
ABOUT 1400 people walked the red carpet at the Glover Prize exhibition at Evandale yesterday and today's visitors will get the added benefit of a concert.
John Glover Society vice- chairman Rose Falkiner said an innovation this year was to lay a red carpet to the entrance of the Falls Park Pavilion that housed selected competition entries.
The ANAM Wind Octet from Melbourne, presented by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, will play in the pavilion at 6.30pm today, followed by supper. Tickets are available at the door.
The winner of the $40,000 Glover Prize for landscape was Janet Laurence's Plants Eye View (in the Tarkine, Tasmania), which was hanging on the pavilion walls yesterday as one of the 43 works selected from the 300 entries to be exhibited until Tuesday.
Society treasurer James Abbott said the good attendance was in part due to the strong brand the event had built during the past decade.
Contemporary references yesterday competed with the inspiration of the event, colonial-era artist John Glover, who is recognised as "the father of Australian landscape painting".
Launceston artist Leoni Duff entered an oil on canvas painting titled Down on Cameron Street. She said the work was deliberately devoid of light colours to reflect the current dark economic times.
And this year's event hosted direct descendants of John Glover. Glover's great- great granddaughter Jocelyn Carlton, of New Zealand, and her daughter, Jill Todd, attended the exhibition.