Poster for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, California

Carlos Almaraz’s poster is part of a fifteen poster set commissioned by the Los

Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee (LAOOC) for the Games of the XXIIIrd

Olympiad in 1984. The signed limited edition (750) prints were created by both internationally known American artists and young emerging local artists selected by the Committee to commemorate the Games, and Los Angeles’ and the United States’ unique contribution to the contemporary art scene.

The modern Olympic movement, founded by Baron de Coubertin, emphasized the development of a ‘total person’ and included art and a cultural Olympiad as a creative complement to athletic demonstrations. Posters have acted as a primary expression of the Games since the modern revival in 1896; each represented by an official poster. They have also served as announcements, souvenirs, fine art prints, and visual reminders throughout the history of the Olympics, ancient and modern.

Almaraz (1941-1989) was born in Mexico and raised in Chicago and later Los Angeles. After briefly living and working in New York, Almaraz moved back to Los Angeles where he earned an MFA from the Otis Arts Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design) and began supporting the burgeoning Chicano Art Movement, working with artists such as Cesar Chavez.

Utilizing iconography, as Almaraz often did, his Olympic poster combines images symbolic of the Olympic Games past and present, including columns, discus throwers, doves, victory laurels, and televisions, over the city of Los Angeles; commenting on both Olympic ideals, such as peace, and the Games modern mediated meanings. Offered a choice between a commission for an Olympic poster or mural, Almaraz choose a poster because of its potential to reach a wider audience, an objective at the core of the LA art posters and Olympic posters generally.

The 1984 Summer Olympics, also known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad were held in Los Angeles, California with 140 countries, 5,263 men and 1,566 women athletes participating. These Games were boycotted by fourteen countries, including the Soviet Union because of America’s boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. American Carl Lewis won four gold medals in track and field while Joan Benoit won gold for the U.S. in the first women’s marathon. Mary Lou Retton dominated women’s gymnastics becoming the first American to win the gymnastics all-around competition and the American men won the gold in the gymnastics team competition. With the addition of women’s only events of rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming and the addition of women’s events in track and field, shooting and cycling, women athletes were just beginning to see results from Title IX legislation of twelve years prior. The United States won the medal count with 174.

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