Paris 1924: Sport, Art and the Body – a 'riveting' show

A century after the last Paris Olympics, the 'invigorating' exhibition explores the artistic legacy of the Games

The Gymnast by George Grosz
The Gymnast by George Grosz
(Image credit: Collection of the McNay Art Museum / Estate of George Grosz)

As athletes from around the world gather in Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics, the Fitzwilliam is staging a show that explores the artistic legacy of the Games the last time they were held in the French capital, exactly a century ago, said Laura Freeman in The Times.

Back in 1924, Paris was the undisputed "artistic centre of Europe, if not the world", and "for every athlete leaping further, hurdling higher and fighting tougher than any man or woman" ever had before, "there was an avant-garde artist breaking the boundaries... and every painterly rule in the book" – often using sport as their inspiration.

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We are also reminded that there was an Olympic category for art between 1912 and 1948 – but two canvases by the 1924 gold-medal winner Jean Jacoby are disappointingly "insipid", and the same is alas true for a number of works on display here. Some exhibits "feel slight and scrappy"; while the memorabilia relating to the University of Cambridge athletes who competed – among them the sprinter Harold Abrahams – seems rather "parochial".

I found the show "riveting", said Laura Cumming in The Observer, not least because it highlights the stories of some remarkable individuals. A "fierce" bronze sculpture by Renée Sintenis depicts the Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi, who was born into poverty and left school at 12, but "was so gifted he won five gold medals in 1924". Then there is a photograph of Lucy Morton, the Blackpool-raised daughter of a groom, "surging up for air" in the final moments of the 200m breaststroke, in which she took gold. Ten thousand people lined the streets to greet her when she went home.

And the exhibition "fizzes with surprises": one moment, you might be looking at Alexander Calder's wire sculpture of the American tennis player Helen Wills; the next, a steel-ridged boot that belonged to the great Uruguayan footballer José Leandro Andrade; or extraordinary paintings of figures in motion by the likes of Picasso and Robert Delaunay. These are just a few high points in an exhibition that is "a revelation from first to last".

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