The Paris Olympics 2024 are fast approaching and will be held from July 26 - August 11, 2024. Leading up to the world’s largest quadrennial sporting event in Paris, France, STIR looks back at the interesting history of the Olympics as a platform for the arts, looking at the Games across the 20th and 21st centuries to feature exciting work by Olympians who are athletes and artists.

Sports and Art: An Unlikely Tryst

Sporting and artistic excellence were closely linked in ancient Greece. In fact, it was a common practice to commemorate the victories of athletes with artistic dedication. Closer to contemporary times, the French Baron Pierre de Coubertin would form the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, lobbying for the inclusion of artmaking as a competitive field in the Olympics right from the start. As he put it, “Deprived of the aura of the Arts contests, Olympic Games are only World Championships.” Baron Coubertin’s dream would be realised at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, as the first round of art medalists were felicitated. The artistic categories that were assessed included architecture, music, painting, sculpture and literature.

Come the Second World War, there was a dip in artistic submissions to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin as artists all over Europe boycotted the German Nazi Party. In particular, artists from the United Kingdom were reluctant to submit work. Nevertheless, German artists performed well at the 1936 Games, earning 12 gold medals for their artistic practice.

The 1940 and 1944 Olympics were cancelled due to the war, and the 1948 Summer Olympics in London saw a dilution in the role that art played at the event, with the United States refraining from submitting work as it was a popular opinion among American sports administrators that the Olympics had evolved to cater exclusively to sports.

In 1949, the former American athlete and sports administrator Avery Brundage became Vice President of the IOC, signalling the end of art at the Olympics. Art medals were cancelled for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki and have not seen a return since then. Per a report from the IOC under Brundage, “Since art competition contestants are practically all professionals, Olympic medals should not be awarded. This event should be in the nature of an exhibition.” It is valuable to consider that while Olympic athletes were strictly amateurs in the past, many of them are considered professionals today and receive enormous institutional support and funding.

The Olympic Artists

While artmaking may no longer be celebrated at the Olympics, this has not stopped several Olympic athletes from extending their prowess into the realms of painting, photography, filmmaking, graffiti art, music and more.

Since 2018, The Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, has been engaging with artistically inclined Olympians through the Olympian Artists programme. This initiative provides Olympic and Paralympic athletes with a global platform for their work, as well as opportunities to participate in projects that promote Olympism.

Here is a curated list of STIR’s favourite Olympic artists:

Jean-Blaise Evéquoz (SUI); Montreal 1976

Jean-Blaise Evéquoz is a Swiss fencer who won a bronze medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada. Evéquoz  is one of the founding members of the Art of Olympians movement, which brought together former Olympians who pursue art, eventually leading to the formation of the World Olympians Association (WOA) Art Committee, known as OLY Arts.

Evéquoz works across a range of mediums, including painting, engraving and sculpture. The artist’s paintings deal with a variety of topics and some of his most captivating pieces are in the Dark Period / Darkness series, which explores the horrors of human conflict.

He has also produced a sports book filled with colourful engravings of athletes competing with each other.

Roald Bradstock (GBR); Los Angeles 1984 and Seoul 1988

Roald Bradstock, popularly known as the "Olympic Picasso", competed for Great Britain twice in the Summer Olympics, at Los Angeles in 1984 and Seoul in 1988. Outside the Olympics, he became the first man in the world to break the 80m barrier in javelin throw in 1986, with a world record throw of 81.74m. He broke his own record the very next year, with a throw of 83.84m.

The British artist creates paintings that express the sporting spirit and iconography of the Olympics. Beyond this, Bradstock has also gained fame for his videos that document him throwing bizarre objects, including dead fish and an iPhone. In 2018, he was appointed Chair of OLY Arts.

Annabel Eyres (GBR); Barcelona 1992

Annabel Eyres is a rower who represented Great Britain at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. Her artmaking has run alongside her sporting career, as she formed a t-shirt designing business with two of her fellow athletes to fund her rowing.

Eyres’ current works are reminiscent of her days as a designer, with her paintings and printmaking projects taking inspiration from Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904), a British photographer who committed his life to capturing human beings and animals in motion.

Brooklyn McDougall (CAN); Beijing 2022

Brooklyn McDougall made her Olympic debut at the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022, where she represented Canada in 500m speed skating. She is currently training to compete at the 2026 Winter Olympics, which will be held in the Italian cities of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.

The Canadian artist pursues a painting practice and is noteworthy for a series titled The Trailblazers. This series celebrates the first female Olympic champions, from the 1900 Summer Olympics, which were held in Paris, France. These athletes included Countess Hélène de Pourtalès (1868 - 1945) of Switzerland, who won a gold medal in sailing, Charlotte Cooper Sterry (1870 - 1966) of Great Britain, who won gold in both, singles and mixed doubles tennis and Margaret Ives Abbott (1878 - 1955), who clinched the gold in golf for the United States.

Clementine Stoney Maconachie (AUS); Sydney 2000

Clementine Stoney Maconachie is a former competitive swimmer who represented Australia at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. She set a World Record in 200m backstroke swimming in 2001.

Maconachie unfortunately gave up competitive swimming in 2003 due to illness, but this has not stopped her from pursuing a career in sculpture, wherein she works with metal, wood and stone. Her sculptures find inspiration in the Olympic values of excellence, respect, friendship and fair play.

Gregory Burns (USA); Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000

Gregory Burns is a former competitive swimmer who represented the United States three times, at the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Summer Paralympics, which were held in Barcelona, Atlanta, and Sydney, respectively. Over his Olympic career, the swimmer won two gold medals and one silver at Georgia and one silver and one bronze at Barcelona. He has also set five swimming records in Paralympic swimming, as well as several national records.

Burns, who contracted polio at the age of one and has been paralysed below the waist his entire life, has made waves as a painter, author and motivational speaker, beyond his sporting accomplishments.

The American artist creates vivid, abstract works that exult the human spirit.

Kader Klouchi (ALG/FRA); Barcelona 1992

Kader Klouchi is a French-Algerian former long jumper who represented Algeria in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. In 1997, he would go on to set the French national record, which he broke the next year.

As a painter and sculptor, Klouchi is preoccupied with capturing motion. While some of his works are figurative and others are more abstract, all his art carries an energetic sense of movement.

Kelly Salchow MacArthur (USA); Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004

Kelly Salchow MacArthur represented the United States in rowing at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics, in Sydney and Athens respectively.

She is currently a professor of graphic design at Michigan State University and has also served as president of the Detroit Chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), from 2009 - 2011. MacArthur’s graphic art takes inspiration from the beauty of nature.

Laurenne Ross (CAN-USA); Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018

Laurenne Ross is a former alpine ski racer who represented the United States at the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics, in Sochi, Russia and Pyeongchang, South Korea, respectively.

Ross is also a multidisciplinary artist who grew up playing the piano, violin and guitar, and now works with photography, printmaking and ceramics. Like Klouchi, her compositions also carry a strong sense of movement.

Neil Eckersley (GBR); Los Angeles 1984

Neil Eckersley is a former judoka who represented Great Britain at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Eckersley took up painting as a form of therapy after suffering a tragic loss in his family and has been pursuing this practice for around 15 years. He is also dyslexic and finds that it helps with self-expression. Many of his works take inspiration from the natural beauty of Norway, where he has lived for nearly a decade.

These are some of the Olympic athletes who have extended their pursuit of excellence into the arts, and STIR is thrilled to offer a window into their artistic practice, in the run-up to the Paris Olympics 2024. The continued efforts of these Olympians to close the gap between the athletic and artistic fields speak to the ancient Greek values that sit at the heart of the Olympics.

With research inputs by STIR intern Diya Rudra

Paris 2024: Explore STIR's extensive coverage of the Olympic and Paralympic Games through features, insider interviews, and thoughtful insights across architecture, design and art, to find out how the global sporting event engages the French capital across these creative avenues and beyond.