I recently wrote about the Contemporary Northwest Art Awards currently at the Portland Art Museum for Oregon ArtsWatch: 

http://www.orartswatch.org/nw-art-awards-a-box-of-chocolates/

At the end of the article I said:

Addendum: I wrote in Willamette Week about the Oregon Annual at the museum forty years ago, and about a couple of Oregon Biennials after that. Two score years of disappointment. Nothing new.

I don’t have the 1976 article, but here are articles from 1978 and 1981: