Vintage Posters

1940 Olympic poster with an abstract rendering of Paavo Nurmi, a Finnish middle-distance and long-distance runner, for the 1940 Helsinki Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XII Olympiad, that were cancelled due to WWII. "Ilmari Sysimetsä is chiefly known for his famous Paavo Nurmi poster with which he won the poster competition in 1938 before the planned Olympic Games in 1940. His poster was eventually used for the Olympics in 1952. From an international point of view, this elegant poster came to be one of Finland’s most famous posters. In 1949, Ilmari Sysimetsä set up his own serigraphy printing house in Helsinki." -ComeToFindland.com. Bottom text reads: AB. F. Tilgmann OY