Poster Power
With Park City as Utah’s winter sports headquarters, posters featuring skiers and skiing venues adorn the walls of many local business establishments and homes. But vintage Olympic posters are all the rage—no surprise, given our moment in the spotlight during the 2002 Games, and Olympic fervor heating up again with Torino 2006 on the horizon.
As of last summer, Park City’s Roots store already had hats and running gear on hand featuring the Torino logo. “I remember the lines to get into Roots that extended all the way down the street night and day [during the 2002 Olympic Winter Games],” reminisces David Schaffner, owner of Flat Rabbet Gallery and Framing, located nearby at 421 Main Street.
But Schaffner’s store, which stocks vintage and new Olympic posters dating from 1896 through 2006, experienced the same kind of overwhelming patronage during 2002. “You have to experience it to know how large a world event the Olympics are. There’s the World Cup, but that boils down to just two teams. The Olympic Games attract the world. It is an incredible undertaking to host the world when you are just a 900-square-foot store.”
Then and now, the most popular Olympic posters sold at Flat Rabbet are Salt Lake City 2002, “and Oslo 1952, because Stein Eriksen is from Norway and that’s where he won his Olympic medals,” Schaffner says. (Gold and silver medalist Stein Eriksen is a Park City local and director of skiing at Deer Valley Resort). Shaffner often gets customers coming in to find posters of Games they previously attended. “Many people attended Sarajevo in 1984, but for whatever reason didn’t buy their posters then. Because of the changes that have taken place there, customers want a poster now. They want to have a memory of what once was,” he says.
Some posters are sought after because of the controversy surrounding them. The Paris 1924 Games’ original poster featured a row of men standing in gymnast uniforms with right arms straightened in the air. Later, this was thought to look too much like a Nazi salute and the “official” poster became an illustration of a muscular javelin thrower.
Australia 1956 was one of the few Olympic Games that held an event outside the continent. Equestrians at the time appealed to the Olympic committee not to force them to fly their horses “Down Under,” so equestrian events were held in Stockholm, Sweden, instead of in Australia.\
If you go to Torino this winter for the 2006 Winter Games, Schaffner recommends buying the limited edition posters while they are available. “People still come in and describe a poster they saw that they want. But only one official poster is made available after each Olympics, and they sometimes become difficult to find.”
Find your favorite Olympic posters at Flat Rabbet Gallery and Framing at 421 Main Street, Park City. 435.649.2155.
Tabitha Thompson is a Park City-based freelance writer.
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