Image: The full moon rises behind the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower in Paul Hanna's exclusive photograph from the 2024 Summer Olympics. Courtesy of Paul Hanna/UPI.

A full moon, the Eiffel Tower and the Olympic rings combined to make photographer Paul Hanna’s image one of the most instantly recognizable from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Paul, who lives in Madrid, Spain, shot the photo for United Press International. He was looking for a distinctive perspective on the eve of the Games, and so researched the exact time the full moon was due to make its appearance over Paris. To get the shot through the Eiffel Tower took some doing, however. The area had been secured and was off-limits to the general public. By flashing his press credentials, Paul was able to talk his way past the gens d’armes long enough to shoot the unique picture.

The instantly iconic image is one of the signature pieces for Steamboat Art Museum’s winter exhibit: “Art in Sport: Motion, Emotion, Moments and Light.” Showcasing the work of prominent award-winning local artists as well as those with strong ties to Colorado, the exhibit is the first of its kind for SAM.

“This exhibition celebrates the glory of sports with the drama, passion, energy and emotion captured by the art. We hope that visitors will be inspired by the works on display," says Rod Hanna, an award-winning sports photographer (and Paul’s father), who is the curator of the exhibit.

“Art in Sport” spans 75 years, from the 1948 Heisman Trophy, on loan from the family of Doak Walker, to Paul’s work from the 2024 Paris Games. It includes a variety of mediums, from oil on canvas to fine art photography, bronze sculpture and one serigraph. “You think about the artistic endeavor that is from the minds, the bodies, the souls – the power that's involved in these athletes – to capture that is a form of art,” Rod says. Although the exhibit’s scope is international, many of the most legendary pieces came from Steamboat Springs: they were sourced from a local kitchen and a ski area locker room, from local galleries, and the Steamboat Magazine storage closet.

“We have a LeRoy Neiman [piece],” Rod notes. “It turns out that up there at the ski area in a locker room – kind of stashed in the back – was this LeRoy Neiman serigraph of an Olympic skier. That was a good find.”

In many ways, the exhibit offers a 360-degree view of artists and athletes. The subject of one piece may be the artist of another. Steamboat gallery owner and photographer Jace Romick, who is contributing several pieces to the show, was also a 1984 World Cup competitor in downhill ski racing. His racing days are the subject of an oil on canvas work by Chicago artist Brian Bonebrake.

Jace’s dual passions for photography and Western sports have always been intertwined. “The inspiration for my rodeo and sports photography relates back to my upbringing,” Jace says. “I grew up sitting on the back of a horse, before I could almost walk, at rodeos with my dad competing.” Jace seeks ways to photograph rodeos in a nontraditional way. “I like to try to get different angles and different aspects that may be a little bit more abstract and a little bit more unique, but still be a rodeo shot.”

In Jace’s observation, photographs about sports that are more artistic, rather than journalistic, can be more captivating. He often crops his ski photography to only include the lower third of the skier’s body and the skis. “I want to see the skis carving and the angulation of that,” he says. “Sometimes I find something a lot more interesting in the photograph than it just being a traditional ski racing shot.”

Ron Dahlquist, who was Steamboat Ski Area’s official photographer in the 1970s, went on to international fame as a surf photographer after he moved to Maui in 1987. He died in 2020, following a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease.

 Ron Dahlquist

“Ansel Adams once said, ‘When you view a photograph of mine, what you see is the equivalent of what I saw and felt.’ Ron’s work was the perfect example of that kind of vision. It’s not just accurately recording the scene; it’s doing it in a way that shows the emotion that’s there,” says Rod, who at the time was public relations director at the ski area.

“Before Ron died, he turned over many of his most famous ski images to us for safekeeping,” says Deborah Olsen, publisher of Steamboat Magazine. “Because they’re slides, we’ve stored them in a dark, cool spot for all these years. I knew that if SAM was going to do an exhibit about art and sports, it would be the ideal time to honor Ron’s memory, so we dug them out, had them digitized and printed for this special show.”

Ron is not the only Steamboat Magazine photographer whose work is included in “Art in Sport.” Noah Wetzel, whose images frequently grace the magazine’s pages and who has won numerous international awards for his photography, will be featured in the exhibit. Michael Pintar, whose photograph of Routt County rodeo rider and world champion Keenan Hayes was on the cover of the Steamboat Springs Visitors’ Guide last summer, is also contributing work for “Art in Sport.”

 "Salsa Saddle," Michael Pintar, photograph, 40x36.

Rod, whose background includes serving as the photographer for the Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs, is displaying five of his classic images. John Fawcett, Gail Folwell, Rich Galusha, Jack Finney, Brown Cannon, Bart Forbes, John Martin, Frank Eliscu and Dennis Pendleton are among the featured artists.

 “Art in Sport: Motion, Emotion, Moments and Light" opens Friday, Dec. 6, and runs through Saturday, April 12. Admission to the museum is free. For more information, visit www.steamboatartmuseum.org.