A crowd favorite at the festival is the poster contest. Open to all, the winning artwork is used to promote the next year's festival, through use of the winning poster on various souvenirs. In addition to posters, the design appears on T-shirts, post cards, sweatshirts, and the cover of the festival's program. A $300 award is made to the winning entry, which is judged on the basis of originality, appropriateness to the garlic theme, and reproducibility. Given the wealth of great artists in the Hudson Valley (and elsewhere . . . we’ve had winners from as far away as California), the winning artwork is always a thing of beauty, especially to garlic aficionados Past contest winners are:

1993 - Ron Naar (Saugerties)
1994 - Angela Gaffney-Smith (Saugerties)
1995 - Carol Zaloom (Saugerties)
1996 - V. David Schneider (Kingston, NY)
1997 - Shannon Newlin (Los Angeles, CA)
1998 - Brian Baker (Niskayuna, NY)
1999 - Shannon Newlin (New York City, NY)
2000 - Fay Wood (Saugerties, NY)
2001 - Jessica A. Lowrie (Accord, NY)
2002 - Gary Rosado (Glasco, NY)
2003 - Brunie Kandora (Saugerties, NY)
2004 - Patti Ferrara (Catskill, NY)
2005 - Kim De Nitto (Saugerties, NY)
2006 - Thomas Lindley (Catskill, NY)
2007 - Robert Place (Saugerties, NY)
2008 - Vincent McDonough (Lake Katrine, NY)

The winning design for the 2008 festival, by artist Vincent McDonough, is featured on most of this Web site's pages.

If you are an artist and you want to know how to enter the contest that will be judged at this year's festival for next year's (2009) poster, click here.