The Artist's Road Painting the World's Beautiful Places

Painting for the Gold

Perspectives from The Artist’s Road

Rugby   1928 Gold Medal Winning Painting   Jean Jacoby
Collection:  Olympic Museum Lausanne

    Competition and art have never seemed to be very compatible to us. To create a painting, music or a poem, can require the same one-pointed focus and intense concentration of the athletes we are watching in the Olympics, but it also requires a disconnect from the ego’s constant default of comparing oneself to others or of needing to prove oneself to be better or the best. Competition can be a way to push further, but there is a quiet contemplation that can’t seem to be put into a time or result-defined space that may be most important for touching the creative pulse.

   Over the decades, the Olympics have struggled with some of these same questions. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and the modern Olympic Games in 1894, called for the recognition of the highest ideals of mind and body, including the arts. He felt that the true Olympian must excel not only in sports, but also in music, literature and the arts. He wrote:  “There is only one difference between our Olympiads and plain sporting championships, and it is precisely the contests of art as they existed in the Olympiads of Ancient Greece, where sport exhibitions walked in equality with artistic exhibitions,”

   From 1912 to 1952 medals were awarded for five categories of art:  literature, music, architecture, painting and sculpture. During that time, a total of 151 medals were given in these categories. The artworks themselves were required to be inspired by sporting endeavors.

   The amateurism policy of the IOC was a key component in the ending of the arts competitions. Because most artists needed to be able to sell their work, they were considered professionals, and therefore were ineligible to be a part of the competitions. After the arts competitions ended, some attempts were made to include art exhibitions without medals in conjunction with the games.

   In 1952, art competition medals were removed from the official national medal counts.

   For more information, see the book by Richard Stanton, The Forgotten Olympic Art Competitions.