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A Century of Olympic Posters

Graphic Design, Music Video / Film

Posted by Eliza Williams, 13 May 2008, 17:20    Permalink    Comments (6)

opmexico.jpg
Mexico 68 poster by Lance Wyman, with artistic direction from Eduardo Terrazas and Pedro Ramirez Vázquez, © courtesy of the artist/IOC/V&A

Despite the protests, Olympic fever is slowly starting to build, and the exhibitions are beginning. This weekend, at the V&A Museum of Childhood in London, a show looking at 100 years of Olympic posters will open which will run (no pun intended...) over the summer to coincide with the Beijing Games. Here are a few extracts from the selection that will be shown - included are posters by artists such as R B Kitaj, as well as much-loved design classics such as Lance Wyman's poster for the Mexico 68 Olympics, shown above.

The V&A is also publishing a book of the posters, by Margaret Timmers, which includes a detailed history of why the official posters were chosen, reactions to them, and how the posters reflected the political and cultural atmosphere of the times. And it's not all about the summer Olympics either, the Winter Games also get a look in too.

A Century of Olympic Posters opens at the Museum of Childhood on May 17 and continues until September 7. More info on the book and exhibition can be found at vam.ac.uk/moc/.

opbarcelona.jpg
Barcelona 92 poster by Josep Maria Trias, © courtesy IOC/V&A

opmunich.jpg
Munich 72 poster by R B Kitaj, © estate of the artist, courtesy Marlborough Fine Art/IOC/V&A

opchamonix.jpg
Chamonix Mont-Blanc Winter Games 1924 poster by Auguste Matisse, © V&A

opla.jpg
Los Angeles 1984 poster by April Greiman and Jayme Odgers, ©1984 Olympics/the artists/IOC/V&A

oplondon.jpg
London 1948 poster by Walter Herz, © courtesy IOC/V&A

opgermany.jpg
Berlin 1936 poster by Franz Würbel, © IOC/V&A

6 Comments

Absolutely love the mexico '68 poster. A fairly daring, bold and graphic approach to such a renowned event. Such a shame England could not have had such inspirational creativity when designing the 2012 logo.
dave
2008-05-13 18:38:29


"daring, bold and graphic approach"

At the risk of starting this debate all over again, I think that describes the London (Britain, not England) 2012 logo perfectly.

Love that Barcelona poster...
Ed Wright
2008-05-14 10:12:02


Thanks Ed for the correction of Britain, my bad. Yes the logo for 2012 could be conceived as "daring, bold and graphic" much in the same way as a drawing with crayons carried out by a 7 year old.... oops may have just opened a can of worms...
dave
2008-05-14 12:52:03


Thank you for a nice collection of colorful posters.

My dad has had one of those framed in his office for as long as I can remember. Maybe you can find one of those and enjoy it, too.
Buy Posters
2008-09-01 14:27:57


I am a fan of R B Kitaj and often uses his posters for promotion of sports related activities.The creativity shown by him seems to be fantastic.
Thanks a lot.
Brittney Scott
2009-03-10 04:31:02


I am a fan of Josep Maria and uses his creativity as posters to promote any sports event.The creativity presented here is really appreciated.
Brittney Scott
2009-03-18 04:22:13


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