20 June 2016: Rhymes with Rio
Germany topped the Olympic medals table in Fine Arts between 1912 and 1948. Medals were awarded in architecture (including town planning), literature (dramatic, epic, lyric categories), music, painting, and sculpture.
The Paris Olympiad in 1924 had 193 submissions, which included three Soviets, even though officially the USSR did not take part in such a bourgeois festival. Over 1,100 works of art were exhibited in the Amsterdam Olympics in 1928, plus literature, music and architecture offerings. Artists and others were encouraged to sell their works at the end of the Olympics. Because of distance and recession there were fewer athletes at Los Angeles in 1932, but the art exhibition attracted 384,000 visitors. In 1936 the USA won silver for town planning, losing out to the German, Werner March, who won gold for designing the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.
Avery Brundige, head of IOC, was concerned that winners of Fine Arts medals were professionals, would capitalise on their accolades, and thus undermine the amateur spirit of the Games, so at a meeting in 1949 the IOC decided to abolish the Fine Arts medals. Heated debate led to reinstatement for Helsinki in 1952, but too late to invite submissions, so an art exhibition was held instead. Subsequent Olympics have held concurrent exhibitions. Meanwhile, athletes have become overt professionals, have profited from their Olympic successes, and have been able sell themselves before and after the end of the Games.
There are just two individuals who have won both sport and art medals, while the oldest Olympic medalist remains 73 year old John Copley, who won silver in 1948 for engravings and etchings.
Old or not old, sporty or couchy, why not send your fine art jottings, poetic or prosaic, to our Medicine Stories Project for others to enjoy during the 2016 Olympiad. Save yourself from zika, from training for stadium podium, from testing for performance enhancement, and put pen to e-paper (or other forms) to tell us your story. We accept, without urine or blood testing, without A or B criteria, without high performance camps, without missions or chefs, any contribution from your rich tapestry of medical life.
Whether or not it rhymes with Rio.
Regards, Jeff
