Harare — The literary and visual arts festival held at the National Gallery attracted a record 1 550 poems and essays and 1 768 art works making it the largest cultural event in Zimbabwe.

The festival ran under the theme "All Great and Small".

Adjudicator and internally acclaimed artist Kate Raath said the quality of work this year was "remarkably high".

She said: "Throughout the judging we gave preference to original, creative works of art although some of my markers were surprised when I marked down a beautifully copied bird from a book and similar works.

"We gave additional marks to works using junk and natural items and fewer marks to cut-outs, particularly when it was apparent that hands other than the child's had done the cutting."

This was Raath's 11th year as adjudicator and she said the standard was still remarkably high.

She was, however, disappointed to see no entries from Chisipite and only one or two from Arundel and St George's.

"The top schools need to show the rest of us the way forward although I appreciate that they too have problems with teachers.

"The pre-school paintings and sculptures of creepy crawly creatures came up with a lovely collection of beetles, bugs and caterpillars with beautiful smiles."

Grades one and two produced works on the theme "Comfortable Creatures".

There were lots of cats, dogs, horses, rabbits and chickens although some pictures did not really fit the theme.

Flying creatures produced a collection of colourful butterflies from Grades three, four and five.

"This was a big class with high standards and it is no disgrace to be awarded a second grade.

"I assure you, it offered a wonderful opportunity to combine science and art, look at the creature closely from different angles and then draw, paint or sculpt it," Raath said.

All the works that won literary honours will be on display at the National Gallery for the next three weeks while the rest have been returned to the schools along with the certificates.

About 780 of the honours, first and second grade paintings are also on display in a kaleidoscope of Zimbabwean art. This year's festival was sponsored by Weaver Press and CBZ Bank.

The exhibition was opened by Jacquie Robertson, the chairperson of the Conference of the Heads of the Independent Schools of Zimbabwe and headmistress of Chisipite Senior School.