Summer Show 2024: A collection of 30 posters from the Munich 1972 Olympics.
A collection of 30 posters from the Munich 1972 Olympics.
Our Summer Show 2024 is now open until the end of August, at our gallery on Maddox Street.
The 1972 Olympic Committee commissioned 28 international artists to each produce an original print for the Munich Games that year. The artists were given unprecedented freedom to explore their personal perspectives of the Olympic spirit using their own unique styles and methods. Departing from the traditional subject matter and style of past Olympic prints, the artists produced works which ranged from abstraction to realism, and from collage to op-art.
The Committee specifically commissioned world-renowned artists to produce this series in order to destigmatise the idea that fine art should be reserved for private enjoyment. Instead, these posters demonstrated that art can exist comfortably in the public sphere, serving both as art and advertisement and echoing the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin’s vision of art and sport in unison.
These prints are more than just promotion for the Games, they chronicle evolving artistic expression and the political and social aspirations of post-war, modern West Germany. They demonstrated, and set the precedent for, how a marriage between art and sport could elevate the Olympics beyond athletics and nationalism, unifying the world through culture and the arts.
SHAPERO MODERN
41-43 MADDOX STREET, LONDON W1S 2PD
Opening hours
MON - FRI: 10 am - 6pm
SAT: 11 am - 5pm
