"Sapporo 1972: XI Olympic Winter Games", Original Official Japanese Advertising Poster 1970, Yusaku Kamekura and Takayuki Ogawa, B1 Size (c. 72.8 × 103 cm)

This is an original official Japanese B1 advertising poster produced in 1970 for the XI Olympic Winter Games, held in Sapporo from 3–13 February 1972. Designed by Yusaku Kamekura, with photography by Takayuki Ogawa, it is the celebrated figure-skating design and the third of four official posters commissioned for the Games.

A landmark of postwar Japanese graphic design, the poster combines Kamekura’s disciplined modernist composition with an extraordinary overhead photograph of a figure skater in motion. Original examples in the imposing Japanese B1 format are highly sought after by collectors of Olympic history, Japanese Modernism and twentieth-century graphic art.

Historical background

The 1972 Sapporo Games were the first Winter Olympic Games held in Asia and the first staged outside Europe and North America. The event therefore represented an important international showcase for Japan, following the transformative success of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics.

Its visual identity was entrusted to several of the country’s foremost designers. Four official posters were produced: the first by Takashi Kōno, the second and third by Yusaku Kamekura, and the fourth by Gan Hosoya. This figure-skating composition was released in June 1970, nearly two years before the opening ceremony, as part of the international promotional campaign.

Kamekura was already internationally celebrated for his defining contribution to the visual identity of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. His Olympic work established a new standard for sporting graphics, combining rigorous typography, universally legible symbols and dramatically cropped photography. The Sapporo designs continued this approach while introducing the distinctive atmosphere and physical movement of winter sport.

Poster design

The composition is dominated by Takayuki Ogawa’s remarkable bird’s-eye photograph of a female figure skater executing a rotation. Viewed directly from above, the athlete appears almost weightless against an expansive field of blue ice, her burgundy costume and pale skates providing the principal points of colour.

The skater is surrounded by a dense web of blade marks. These overlapping arcs and scratches transform the rink into an almost abstract surface, recalling spontaneous drawing or Abstract Expressionist linework. The poster therefore records not simply one movement but the accumulated physical traces of numerous movements across the ice.

To obtain this unusual perspective, a special crossbeam was constructed above the rink. Secured by a safety line, Ogawa photographed the skater from directly overhead and reportedly exposed more than one hundred frames before the final image was selected. The designers initially considered using pristine, mirror-like ice but concluded that the existing skate marks created a far more expressive and visually compelling background.

Kamekura gives the photograph room to breathe, allowing the dark shadow cast by the skater to descend through a broad expanse of negative space. This establishes a powerful vertical axis connecting the athlete with the official emblem and typography below.

The Sapporo Olympic emblem

Positioned near the lower centre is the official Sapporo ’72 emblem designed by Kazumasa Nagai, another central figure in postwar Japanese graphic design. Its precisely ordered vertical construction combines three elements:

The red disc of the Hinomaru, representing Japan.

A stylized snowflake derived from an historic Japanese heraldic motif, representing winter.

The five interlocking Olympic rings and the inscription SAPPORO ’72.

The emblem’s strict geometric structure contrasts with the spontaneous energy of the scratched ice and the skater’s suspended movement. Across the bottom, the monumental condensed lettering “XI Olympic Winter Games” provides a strong architectural foundation, with the Games’ dates printed discreetly beneath.

Design significance

The poster exemplifies Kamekura’s ability to reconcile apparently opposing forces: order and movement, geometry and photography, institutional authority and individual athletic expression. Its carefully controlled visual hierarchy allows the image to communicate immediately from a distance while revealing increasingly rich detail at close range.

The work belongs to a formative period when Japanese graphic designers were achieving unprecedented international recognition. Through the visual programmes created for Tokyo 1964, Osaka Expo ’70 and Sapporo 1972, designers such as Kamekura and Nagai demonstrated that Japanese Modernism could be both internationally intelligible and culturally distinctive.

This poster is consequently much more than Olympic memorabilia. It is an important original work of Japanese graphic design, created by three distinguished figures: Yusaku Kamekura, photographer Takayuki Ogawa, and emblem designer Kazumasa Nagai.

This poster is in excellent condition, retaining rich blue colour, strong photographic detail and a commanding overall presentation. Please refer to the supplied imagery of the exact poster for sale.

It is over 55 years old.

It is not a reproduction or a reprint.

Certificate of Authenticity included.