For decades in the early 20th century, the Olympic Games included events in art, literature and music. Only one person won more than a single gold medal in those years: Jean Jacoby, a painter from Luxembourg who remains his country's most decorated Olympian.
Ten years after he revived the Olympics, French baron Pierre de Coubertin felt it was time to restore the intellectual, moral and ‘to a certain extent, religious’ buttresses that had supported the competition in antiquity — so he decided to introduce a ‘pentathlon of the Muses’, encompassing contests in sculpture, painting and graphic work, literature, music and architecture. In later years, town planning.
The addition, introduced at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, was a flop — but they carried on gamely for several decades until it was dropped in 1949, ahead of the Helsinki Olympics of 1952. This accident of destiny has turned twice gold-medallist Jean Jacoby into the undisputed champion of all times in the painting category.
Jean Jacoby photographed in 1928. Photo: Ullstein bild via Getty Images
Born in Luxembourg City in 1891, Jean Jacoby studied in Strasbourg (then part of Germany) and looked set to become an art teacher, but decided in 1912 to strike out as an artist in 1913. After the First World War, with Strasbourg now part of France, he had to give up his German citizenship, acquiring that of his native Luxembourg.
A keen footballer, he found his calling in sports art in 1923. In 1924, he entered the Paris Olympics — and won the first gold medal, for himself and for Luxembourg, with the triptych Étude de Sport, (which included Corner, pictured above, Départ, and Rugby).
The artist he beat into second place, incidentally? Jack Butler Yeats, younger brother of the Irish poet WB Yeats. Imagine coming home at Christmas to show off an Olympic silver to friends and family, only for your older sibling to show off his Nobel Prize to upstage you.
Jacoby successfully defended his Olympic title in Amsterdam in 1928, winning with a different work called Rugby.
Jean Jacoby’s Rugby. Credit: Alamy
Fame ensued and Jacoby was called to Berlin, where he worked as illustrator and artistic adviser for Ullstein publishers, as well as exhibiting his work.
He was at the peak of his success when Hitler came to power; the Ullsteins, who were Jewish, were persecuted, and Jacoby abandoned Berlin for Mulhouse in France.
Jean Jacoby’s ‘Coureuren 101’. Credit: Alamy
In 1936, he returned to Germany to compete at the Munich Olympics, but with Goebbels in charge of the art competitions and Nazi taste favouring grand, muscular work, painting won few medals — and Jacoby none. Despite praise from other artists, he was disappointed and died in September 1936. Even in death, the Nazis had more in store for him: in 1940, when Germany invaded Luxembourg, they destroyed the memorial that had been built in Jacoby’s honour.
For years, Jacoby remained Luxembourg’s only Olympic gold-medal winner and he still accounts for two-thirds of the country’s haul. In 1952, for the Helsinki Olympics, the Luxembourg post office issued a set of six stamps, of which five featured Jacoby artwork (the sixth was by his son, René). That same year, athlete Josy Barthel won Luxembourg’s only other Olympic gold medal to date, in the 1500-metre race.
Jean Jacoby’s ‘Fechter-101’. Credit: Alamy
