Since the first staging of the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1923 the event’s poster has synthesized at a glance the promises of the forthcoming race. Over the years it has evolved in keeping with fashions, artistic currents, the international situation and today it represents a rich pictorial heritage. It’s become an original creative medium which, last year, led to an innovative artistic initiative called the 24 Hours in posters. In parallel to the official poster 24 illustrators were asked to give their own vision of the race, and this year the result is another eye-catching display to say the least!

The idea for the 24 Hours in posters was the fruit of the imagination of four people from Le Mans, Hubert Poirot-Bourdain, Benoît Goupil de Bouillé, Thomas de Galard and Juliette Charon who were looking for an event to bring the race into the heart of the town, whereas it’s more often the heart of the town that moves out to the circuit! By displaying the works of the illustrators in the streets of Le Mans this unifying project offers the inhabitants and passers-by an accessible high-quality artistic experience. It also plays with what may seem a priori to be contradictory values, but in the end they enrich one another as the artistic universe, which has an elitist touch about it, depicts a popular sporting subject aimed at the general public. Finally, this initiative breathes new life into the long tradition of the hand-drawn poster that has been eclipsed by computer creations. For the ACO and its president Pierre Fillon, the 24 Hours in posters shows yet again, “the close links which unite the Le Mans 24 Hours and the artistic milieu. Since the creation of the event in 1923 these two universes which, by nature, seem very distant from each other have never stopped crossing paths to pay each other a kind of mutual homage.” 

The 2017 selection calls on illustrators from all kinds of horizons. They comprise men and women who are either already well known or who are in the process of making a name for themselves as either comic strip artists or illustrators for children’s books: they each have their own profile that shapes the way in which they portray the Le Mans 24 Hours. Thanks to the backing of the ACO,  the town of Le Mans and the Sarthe department their works will be on display in the streets of Le Mans from 7th to 21st June 2017 and at the circuit during the Le Mans 24 Hours. A must-see open-air exhibition!    

  The illustrators of the 24 Hours in posters 2017