---
title: "When did the Olympics last award medals for art?"
description: "The London Games, the last with art competitions, 1948. What happened, why it has not happened since, and whether it plausibly could again."
url: https://atoneplace.net/the-last-time/olympic-art/
site: "At One Place"
---

# When did the Olympics last award medals for art?

**When did the Olympics last award medals for art?: 1948**

The London Games, the last with art competitions

From 1912 to 1948 the Olympics awarded medals in architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture, all for works inspired by sport, and 151 medals were handed out. They were dropped because the competitors were professionals and the Games were then strictly amateur — an argument that became obsolete decades later without the competitions ever returning. Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the modern Games, won a gold medal for poetry in 1912 under a pseudonym.

- **What:** The London Games, the last with art competitions
- **When:** 1948
- **Category:** Everyday things
- **Could this change?:** Not in any foreseeable way. The event is closed.

## Everyday things

| Question | When |
| --- | --- |
| When did the London Underground last gain a line? | 24 May 2022 |
| When did the tallest building in the world last change? | 2010 |
| When did the prime meridian last move? | 1984 |
| When were the Olympic Games last cancelled? | 1944 |
| When was a leap year last skipped? | 1900 |
| When was a letter last added to the English alphabet? | The 1500s and 1600s |

> This page gives a date and never a "years ago". These pages are built as static files, so a computed interval would freeze at build time and quietly become wrong — which on a reference site is worse than making the reader do the subtraction.

## Common questions

### When did the Olympics last award medals for art?

1948 — The London Games, the last with art competitions.

### What happened?

From 1912 to 1948 the Olympics awarded medals in architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture, all for works inspired by sport, and 151 medals were handed out. They were dropped because the competitors were professionals and the Games were then strictly amateur — an argument that became obsolete decades later without the competitions ever returning. Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the modern Games, won a gold medal for poetry in 1912 under a pseudonym.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]