The Olympic Art Competitions: Olympic medals for artworks, Pierre de Coubertin’s passion for art, the Fine Art Salon, and the social circles

Abstract

In 2024, the city of Paris will be hosting the Olympic Games for the third time, after 1900 and 1924. At that Olympic Games one competition was held at the Grand Palais for which, instead of physical effort, creativity was needed to win an Olympic medal. This means that Pierre de Coubertin’s Olympic program had an artistic element. Only a few people know that between 1912 and 1948, the Olympic Art Competitions were held in parallel to the sports contests. Male and female artists competed in the five disciplines of painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music. Consequently, this paper traces the inspirational sources for Pierre de Coubertin to conceptualize such competitions. It unveils the link to the art worlds of the Fine Art Salon through his artistic family background. In addition, it explains the importance of the private salons to find like-minded people that helped him realizing his Olympic vision and who were companions along the way. The findings enable a better understanding of how and why the sports aficionado had an interest in art and find a way to combine both in the Olympic Art Competitions – the artistic element in the Olympic Program during the first half of the 20th century.