National Art Museum of China to reproduce bust of IOC founder

Wu Weishan (R) presented a classic Chinese paper-cutting to IOC President Thomas Bach. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

The National Art Museum of China has been given permission by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to reproduce a bust of IOC founder Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937), and the reproductions will be presented as gifts to state leaders.

It was announced by IOC President Thomas Bach when he visited the Beijing museum on Sunday.

The production will be modeled after a bust designed by the NAMOC director and sculptor Wu Weishan. It depicts a smiling Coubertin, and Wu donated it to the Olympic Museum in January when he visited IOC's head office in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Bach said during a meeting with Wu that art and sport are languages people don't need to learn because they both come from the heart, and they address the common goal of the future of human but in different ways.

He also said the IOC hopes to intensify the cooperation with the museum in the preparations for the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing. And he invited Wu to attend the ceremony to ignite the Olympic flame in Athens at the end of 2011.

Wu presented two gifts to Bach, a classic Chinese paper-cutting and a scroll of Chinese calligraphy, both activities were practiced as sports by ancient Chinese.

Wu said, "As artists and museum administrators, we're obliged to merge the creation of beauty and the Olympic spirits."