Description
Original poster Howard Hodgkin “Welcome” – XIV Olympic Winter Games, Sarajevo. Original offset color lithograph. An archive, vintage poster, printed in 1984, now collectible and in short supply.
Art and Sport portfolio: The Yugoslav Olympic Committee of the Winter Olympic Games Sarajevo 1984 wished to give a certain cultural-artistic accent to this world festivity. The admire of the Olympic idea, those who have a liking for the Olympic winter sports and the art connected with them will be, in agreement with the art publisher Visconti Art Lazo Vujić, honored by creations contributed by world known prominent artist. A portfolio containing sixteen original prints, handsigned and numbered by the artists, is published in a limited edition of 200 originals by each artist. Names like Dorazio, Folon, Greco, Helnwein, Hodgkin, Hwang, Kolar, Moore, Paladino, Pistoletto, Rosenquist, Santomaso, Stupica, Twombly and Warhol guarantee the high quality of the artistic idea and its realization. The size of the original print is 85 x 62 cm. The edition of the original graphic portfolio will be accompanied by limited editions of art posters of the same size, not numbered, but each of them carrying an impression of the inscription “Olympic Games Sarajevo 1984” and its logotype.
The themes proposed by the artists are either winter sports, the Olympic idea or the town of Sarajevo. All the artists remain faithful to their own specific expression, using the formal elements of the language developed through the years of their creative presence in world’s art. So every print included in the portfolio is at the same time a particular contribution to the continuity of their artistic orientation, the theme being an additional iconographic impulse to their visual research. The symbiosis of the Olympic idea and art is certainly an interesting creative proposal that will fascinate art-collectors and sport-lovers as well.
Howard Hodgkin was a British painter and printmaker, famous for his abstractions. He became a prominent artist for painting on wooden supports such as drawing boards and door frames instead of canvas. His gestural brushstroke and a vivid palette of contrasting colors emphasizes the rectangular picture plane and defines painting as an object. “I am representational painter, but not a painter of appearances. I paint representational pictures of emotional situations.” – said Hodgkin. This abstract graphic has a green motif of a tree or an arrow pointing upwards in the center of the composition, with bright red paint brushstroke’s patterns in the background. The erasure of a border and the emergence of poster-like images, like we see in this composition, are typical for his art in the eighties.
