Olympic Posters Just a Matter of Weeks from the Opening Previously Behind the V&A’S Major 1998 Show Gained Added Status After the War

Olympic posters Just a matter of weeks from the opening previously behind the V&A’s major 1998 show gained added status after the war. Until 1948, ceremony, we are yet to see an official poster ‘The Power of the Poster’, says: “The Games international art competitions had been held for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. If and happen every four years, so each one becomes alongside the sports tournament, in accordance when it does appear, anyone who has visited a window on that moment in time: the politics, with International Olympic Committee (IOC) ‘A Century of Olympic Posters’ at the V&A the place, the period. The designs didn’t always founder Pierre de Coubertin’s wish that the Museum of Childhood will be perfectly placed follow the most avant-garde artistic trends, Games should symbolise aesthetic as well as to deconstruct its conscious and unconscious but the reasons behind their selection were athletic excellence. Such a notion having passed messages. fascinating.” its sell-by date with the increasing pluralism of The exhibition is the first in the UK to Since the very first modern Games, the fine art, it was abandoned, leaving the poster – assemble a major collection of Games posters. central purpose of the Olympic poster has joined later by the official emblem – as the sole Comprising examples from the V&A’s own remained constant: to advertise the event channel through which the host country could collection, loans from the Olympic Museum and shape expectations. In the first half of the express its Olympic spirit. and new acquisitions funded by generous twentieth century, before mass media, they The official poster became a means for a donations from various V&A benefactors, the had an informational role, too, by carrying city to cast itself in a new light. For the 1948 show includes at least one from every summer details of the dates and venue. Posted widely Games, as post-war London sought to reaffirm event since the 1900 Paris Games. On the walls in city streets and railway stations, they could the firm democratic foundations upon which are works by David Hockney, R B Kitaj, Andy encourage travel to the host country. it could put itself back together physically, Warhol and Victor Vasarely, as well as leading As the Games grew in stature and the posters its poster powerfully juxtaposed a marble graphic designers such as Lance Wyman and were distributed on a global scale, other forces Discobolus (from the ancient Games) with the April Greiman. As a group, they tell the story of started to enter the design process. The official Houses of Parliament. our changing times in a way you won’t find in poster for the 1936 Berlin Games features By the mid-1950s commercial art, as it any history book. an unmistakably Aryan figure, heroic and had been known, was evolving into modern, Curator Margaret Timmers, who was golden, as demanded by the Führer. The poster mass-produced graphic design. “A lot of the Above: official poster for Berlin Olympic Games, 1936, Franz Würbel. Above right: official poster for London To coincide with this summer’s Beijing Olympics, the Museum of Olympic Games, 1948, Walter Herz. Right: Childhood is staging an exhibition celebrating a century’s worth of official brochure for Amsterdam Olympic Olympic posters. So what do Games graphics tell us about the shifting Games, 1928, cover illustration by Jos preoccupations of the twentieth century? Michael Evamy reports – and Rovers. All © courtesy IOC/Victoria and Albert asks three Olympic designers to recall their own poster performances Museum 32 V&A Magazine Summer 2008 www.vam.ac.uk V&A Magazine Summer 2008 33.

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