Artists Once Competed for Olympic Medals in the Modern Games

French educator and historian Pierre de Coubertin wanted the 1912 Games to include creative excellence. Library of Congress. Public Domain

When the modern Olympic Games launched in the 1890s, the idea was to bring back the competitions of ancient Greece. The Greek games featured more than physical contests; artists, philosophers, and performers participated along with athletes. The ancient Games were meant to display the height of human achievement in honor of the gods.

French educator and historian Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894 to revive the Games and the original intention. From the beginning, Coubertin dreamed that the modern Olympics would incorporate the achievements of the mind as well as the body. He wanted to include artists.

The "Gateway of Dreams" monument, with a statue of Pierre de Coubertin in Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta, Georgia.  JJonahJackalope / CC BY-SA 4.0

During the first two Olympic competitions, Coubertin wasn’t able to include creative achievements in the event due to time constraints, and members of the IOC refused to make any late changes.

In 1904, Coubertin was quoted in an article saying that the arts were missing from the Olympics. To be a true Olympiad, he said, the games must feature mastery in both sports and the arts. Yet again, art wasn’t included in the 1908 Olympic games.

The Stockholm Games

Coubertin’s dream finally took shape in 1912 when the Olympic Games in Stockholm added competitions in sculpture, architecture, music, painting, and literature. Coubertin himself was the first to win a gold medal in literature with his poem, “Ode to Sports,” written under the pseudonyms Georges Hohrod and M. Eschbach.

The rules initially indicated that all pieces of art had to be original and made specifically for the competition. All artwork submitted had to be related to sports, in some way. Like the victorious athletes, the winning artists stood on the podium and received their medals.

Poster for the 1912 Summer Olympics, held in Sweden, where medals were awarded for the arts. Olle Hjortzberg/PD-US

At first, the art community had mixed feelings about the competitions. Many didn’t like the idea of combining competition and art. Some artists feared losing could damage their reputation. Some didn’t trust how the artwork would be judged.

However, interest in the art competitions soon grew. During the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, over 1,100 works of art were submitted. During the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, nearly 400,000 visitors traveled to the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art to view the art exhibitions.

Double Winners

Between 1912 and 1952, 151 medals were awarded to original, sports-inspired works of art. American Walter Winans was the first to win a gold in both art and sports; he took the top prize in sculpture in 1912 after earning first place in shooting four years prior. Hungarian swimmer Alfred Hajos later repeated Winans’s feat by winning two gold medals in swimming in 1896, then winning a silver medal in architecture in 1924.

Walter Winans, 1910, American-born British marksman, sculptor, and painter. The Olympic medalist won in shooting and sculpture. Public Domain

Coubertin passed away in 1937. His dream of glorifying the ancient Olympiad open to those skilled at both art and sports slowly faded within the Olympic community. After the 1948 Olympic Games, the new IOC leadership started questioning art competitions. Critics said that art was subjective and impossible to judge fairly. Moreover, the IOC had a strict amateurs-only policy when it came to athletes, and they felt it wasn’t fair to let professional artists compete, especially since many sold their work at the competitions.

Alfred Hajos, who won gold medals in swimming and a silver in architecture. Public Domain

In 1949, IOC members voted to end the art competitions and replace them with exhibitions instead. A few years later, the committee stripped away all art competition medals from official national medal counts.

Coubertin envisioned the best of man’s creative efforts as well as physical achievements. He showcased his vision in the first stanza of his gold-medal winning poem. The original is in French:

O Sport, delight of the Gods, distillation of lift! In the grey dingle of modern existence, restless with barren toil, you suddenly appeared like the shining messenger of vanished ages, those ages when humanity could smile. And to the mountain tops came dawn’s first glimmer, and sunbeams dappled the forest’s gloomy floor.

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