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1. Early Modern Games
Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937), the architect of the modern Olympic Games, wished to foster national and international understanding through sport. He saw it as a means to inspire excellence – physical, moral and aesthetic. The decision to establish the modern Games, based on the ancient Greek tradition, was taken at a Congress on sport held in Paris in 1894.   

There had been various precursors.  In England, for example, the Cotswold Olimpick Games had taken place since the early 17th century. In Athens itself, a series of modern Greek Olympiads was founded in 1859 by the philanthropist Evangelis Zappas. A notable English pioneer for the revival of the Games was William Penny Brookes, who founded the Wenlock Olympian Games in 1850.

No official poster was produced for the inaugural Athens Olympic Games of 1896.  In Paris 1900 and St Louis 1904 the Games took place alongside World Fairs which claimed the greater attention. The London 1908 Games, held beside the Franco-British Exhibition, established the Games in their now-familiar format, and by Stockholm 1912 the Games were centre stage – heralded by a poster.

2. Body Beautiful
The human body is the subject of many Olympic Games posters, presenting an ideal of physical perfection according to the values of the time.  De Coubertin himself admired the cult of athleticism practiced by Greek civilization, and believed that sport ‘produces beauty because it creates the athlete, who is a living sculpture.’  This is reflected in several early Olympic posters that idealize the nude human form, often portraying it in contexts that suggest the classical world.  

By the 1920s, Modernist concerns about the healthy body, and individual and collective fitness, are revealed.  It was not until Tokyo 1964 that posters used photography to capture the perfection and power of the contemporary athlete.  Commissioned posters by artists such as Hockney and Warhol have offered new insights – portraying the human body as a metaphor for the spirit of human endeavour rather than as literal representation.  Some recent posters present the body in deconstructed, emblematic form – appealing to an audience more familiar with the vocabulary of branding and identity than notions of classical beauty.

3. Posters and Politics
While the prime function of Olympic posters is to promote successive Games, they can also be viewed as historic documents, relaying social and political messages inherent to their times.  A striking example was the dominant poster for the Berlin 1936 games, in the heroic realist style approved by Hitler.  The pattern of poster production itself has been affected by war: Olympics planned for Berlin 1916, Tokyo or Helsinki 1940, and London 1944, were all cancelled or postponed.

After the Second World War the Olympics increasingly became a world stage for political statement and protest.  Boycotts occurred at Melbourne 1956, Moscow 1980, and Los Angeles 1984, a terrorist attack at Munich 1972 and a bomb at Atlanta 1996.  This has sometimes brought about a clash between the optimistic imagery of advance publicity and the harsh reality of events.  However, the quelling of student protests at the time of the Mexico City Games triggered an on-the-spot unofficial poster expressing the urgency of the moment.

4. Post-War – A New Beginning
De Coubertin believed that ‘The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part’, and this ideal informed the spirit of the London 1948 Olympics.  These first post-War Games were held in a climate of austerity, with much of the city still in ruins, and rationing still in place.  Nevertheless, they were a triumph of ingenuity and ‘making do’, bringing together many of the countries that had suffered during the war years.  Posters associated with these Games strike an equally optimistic note.   

For the 1952 Helsinki Games a competition was launched for the official poster, but none could compete with the original design for the cancelled 1940 Games.  Only the new date and the altered outline of Finland on the globe marked the change to a post-war world.  Melbourne 1956 marked another new beginning – it was the first time that the Olympics had been held in the southern hemisphere.  The Games were announced by a poster of unashamedly modern design, marking a departure from the illustrative tradition of earlier official posters.

5. Symbols and Identity
Olympic posters communicate the evolving iconography of the modern Games.  These include official Olympic symbols, emblems of national and civic pride, and specific Games’ identities.  

Official symbols help to identify and validate the aspirations of the Olympic movement.  The five interlocking rings representing the five continents united in competition, is constantly re-invented as a design motif, though now subject to strict graphic controls set by the International Olympic Committee.  The Olympic flag, motto (‘Citius Altius Fortius’ = ‘Faster Higher Stronger’) and flame are other elements of the developing tradition.  
While these Olympic symbols can be read as promoting ideals of internationalism, another distinct genre establishes national and civic identity.  Depictions of national flags and emblems, cities’ coats of arms, famous landmarks and cultural artefacts are inescapable statements promoting host venues to the world.  

The use of pictographic emblems to symbolise individual Olympiads began with the Paris Games of 1924, and has been a key pictorial element of posters since then – either as a main or as a subordinate motif.  

6. Inspiring New Art
The promise of a union between sport and art was an important element in Munich’s bid for the 1972 Olympics, with posters high on the agenda.  The ambitious Edition Olympia 1972 series was a commercial venture published jointly by the Organising Committee of the Munich Olympics and the Munich publishing house F. Bruckmann K.G.  It consisted of 35 posters, commissioned from some of the world’s leading contemporary artists, issued between 1969 and 1972.  

Artists, who included Josef Albers, Max Bill, David Hockney, R.B. Kitaj and Victor Vasarely, were free to choose their themes, but were invited to submit their interpretations of the Olympic ideal.  Three grades of poster were produced, ranging from original graphics printed on high quality paper in signed numbered editions (aimed at the wealthy art collector), to easily-affordable commercial editions printed on poster paper.

This pioneering venture, inspiring artists to interpret the spirit of sporting endeavour, was at the forefront of a development which deployed fine art posters in a relatively new way in promoting the Olympics.

7. Commerce
Official Olympic posters ‘sell’ the Games to a global audience. Before the 1960s, there was normally one official poster, but since then whole series have been generated, often themed to appeal to different target audiences.  Many posters have subsequently achieved enhanced market value.

Official posters are generally free of overt advertising, although some early examples are lettered with the name of the railway companies that distributed them abroad.  Travel companies themselves have frequently advertised the Olympics in relation to their own services.  

The Los Angeles Games of 1984 were the first to develop the full potential of corporate sponsorship and licensing agreements to yield large income.  For example the Games’ mascot, Sam the Olympic Eagle, was extensively applied to licensed products and also used by many sponsors and suppliers in their own publicity - including posters.

Under the present code of practice, sponsors and licensees can purchase the right to promote themselves in relation to particular Games, and to use official Olympic terminology, logos and symbols (which also appear on official posters) in authorised commercial contexts.  Usage is strictly patrolled by Olympic bodies.

8. Diversity
The ever-expanding spread of Olympic venues since Melbourne 1956 has greatly enriched the scope of artistic interpretation and enlarged the cultural perspective of the games.

The image of the young, physically perfect white male athlete dominated the early years of the Olympics.  Gradually this archetype has been displaced, reflecting changing attitudes to gender, race, class, age, religion, politics and ability.  Women, for example, though competing in the Games since 1900, have rarely been portrayed on official posters.  The first Olympic poster to focus exclusively on the black contribution to sport was by the African-American artist Jacob Lawrence for the Munich Edition Olympia 1972 series.

The idea of the Paralympics was born in 1948, when a competition was organised at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in England for patients with spinal injuries.  An Olympic-style games for athletes with a disability was first organised in Rome in 1960.  The Paralympics have now become an elite event, held in the same year and at the same venue as the Olympic Games.  The founding of various alternative Olympics, such as the Gay Games, and the Special Olympics for people with a learning disability, has further broadened our understanding of human sporting endeavour.

9. Regeneration
Regenerating the urban environment, stimulating economic growth and improving infrastructure are prime motivations for would-be Olympic venues.  Directly or indirectly posters have been used in support of such aims, both in eliciting support at home and as statements of intent in the bidding process.

Because official posters are issued well in advance of the event, they rarely incorporate imagery of Olympic architectural schemes.  Views of the newly-designed Olympic stadiums did however feature in official posters for the Munich 1972 Games.  More frequently the posters express civic pride in existing manmade and natural landmarks.  A profile of the Barcelona skyline, appearing in a logo poster for the 1992 Olympics, hinted at the inspired programme of urban regeneration that was the legacy of those Games.  

In its ‘Back the Bid’ posters produced in 2004, the London 2012 campaign used well-known London landmarks (including recent structures such as the London Eye and the Gherkin) in a series of daring photomontages to encourage home support and to associate its Olympic bid with architectural flair and urban enterprise.