In honor of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, we remember the work Peter Phillips was commissioned to paint for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

The 2010 Fine Art Project was an official 2010 World Cup collaboration that brought together a range of artists from around the world to create works inspired by Africa’s first World Cup. Five artists from of each of the 32 qualifying countries were commissioned to celebrate the sport in Africa through original works of art. Various genres were represented, with artists ranging from Peter Phillips and Ed Gray in the United Kingdom to Paul Goodnight in the United States.

Phillips’ contribution, a painting called “Africa Twirl” is an abstract that combines imagery of the sport with the colors of South Arica’s flag. In April 2010, this was the first piece accepted into the collection.

Read more from The New York Times

Peter Phillips was commissioned to create one of twenty-eight posters to advertise the Munich Olympic Games of 1972. Pop art contemporaries such as Allen Jones and David Hockney contributed to the collection and attended the opening ceremonies with Phillips. These posters were the first of their kind, immortalizing many cultural icons through the convergence of sport and art, and setting a precedent for artistic contributions in Games to come.

Phillips’ print incorporates literal references of the time and place, including a hurdler with the number 72, and colors of the German flag and Olympic logo. As with the entire collection of art supporting the officially named “Happy Games,” the Hurdler expressed hope and pride in a new and modern Germany. Tragically, the air of optimism turned disastrous after Palestinian zealots murdered 12 hostages in what is now known as the “Munich Massacre”.

When asked what his paintings signify, Phillips responds, “different things to different people of course.” This couldn’t hold truer for Hurdler, which has assumed the responsibility for a spectrum of emotions connected to competition, victory, loss, nationalism and religious fervor.  The Hurdler is one of many of Phillips’ works that memorializes a specific time, culture and place while taking on new meaning for observers based on evolving context.