New Exhibition Chronicles How Sport Became Infused With Art In 1924 Paris

Cast your mind back to summer 1924. The hemlines were dropping and the alcohol was flowing which meant the Roaring Twenties were in full swing. It's widely known that fashion during this time took on a more sportier edge as dresses blended style with function; an unprecedented act (when compared to the corseted fashion of just two decades earlier) that allowed women to move. And what better display of movement than at the 1924 Paris Olypmics, a pivotal moment documented in an exhibition coming to The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge this summer: Paris 1924: Sport, Art and the Body.

Looking at how the 1924 Olympics were a breakthrough that dramatically changed attitudes towards sporting achievement and celebrity, the exhibition, co-curated by Professor Caroline Vout and Professor Christopher Young) does a deep dive how the games affected body image, identity, class, race and gender. Modernist paintings by the likes of Robert Delaunay, Gino Severini, Pablo Picasso and Andre Lhote are set to be included as are rare artefacts such as the football boots worn by José Andrade, who played for Uruguay when they went on to win the gold medal in the football competition and the letter William DeHart Hubbard (the first Black person to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event) sent to his mother from the SS America in which he writes of his intention of becoming the first ‘colored Olympic champion’.

Chronicling how inspiration rooted in ancient Greece helped Paris' Olympics keep with the changing times of the 1920s, the exhibition sets to uncover the correlation between broadcast radio commentaries and athletes transforming into celebrities overnight. Reminding visitors that the level of technological, social and economic advancement the 1920s witnessed was, quite frankly, irrefutable, Paris 1924: Sport, Art and the Body seeks to investigate how the tensions and dialogues between the Games’ classical beginnings and the explosion of modernity led to the Paris 1924 Olympics becoming a shaper of visual culture of the period, extending beyond sports into fashion, sculpture, poster art, film and photography. Refusing to abide by a box-ticking exercise, the exhibition doesn't just reveal the names of the athletes that made the 1924 Olympics memorable for all the right reasons, but their stories, too - including that of sprinter, Cambridge University alum and inspiration behind the award-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire, Harold Abrahams.

Ways in which the ancient Greeks influenced the 1924 Paris games are also documented via the exhibition's noted Olympics incorporated Arts Competitions - a series of contests in music, dance, theatre and athletics that took place between 1912 and 1948. Such styles of competition were a mainstay of public festivals in ancient Greece and meant not only public participation but a union between disciplines. Although art competitions may be buried in the past when it comes to the Olympics, the exhibition brings together some of the winning entries in painting and sculpture which ran alongside the sporting competition.

Whether looking at athletes as 'objects of the gaze' in art or as celebrities in their own right that invaded popular culture, Paris 1924: Sport, Art and the Body makes sure to prize as much importance on the art and sculptures of the period as well as the very sporting individuals who helped create them.

Paris 1924: Sport, Art and the Body will be open to the public at The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge between 19 July and 3 November.