ART AND ATHLETICS: THE WORK OF R. TAIT MCKENZIE

Abstract

The year of the XXI Olympiad in Montreal is an appropriate time to highlight the lives of those Canadians who have made significant contributions to the Olympic movement. One all too quickly assumes that this would entail a review of the careers of certain heroes of sport or a resumé of the diet, training, competitions and victories of champions like Karen Magnussen and Nancy Greene. Yet capturing the human form at the height of its beauty and power in a work of art has always been integral to the Olympic ideal and Canadian R. Tait McKenzie, through his sculpture of athletic figures, has contributed uniquely to this. The ability of the artist to recreate the beauty of the athlete in action goes back in recorded history as far as the Egyptians of 3000 B.C. who represented the grips and holds of their wrestlers with outstanding clarity and completeness. Masterpieces of athletic sculpture such as the Charioteer, the Discobolus, the Doryphoros, the Apoxyomenos marked the progress of Greek art from Homeric to Roman times. In the modern era, the image of the twentieth-century athlete has been preserved through the artistic genius of R. Tait McKenzie. It is the intent of this author to offer a brief biographical sketch of McKenzie and to develop the background for his contributions associated with the Olympic Movement.