Olympic Posters: Pop and Publicity brings early taste of Games to Wolverhampton Art Gallery

Exhibition: Olympic Posters: Pop and Publicity, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton, until April 28 2012

When the organisers of the 2012 Olympics announced a marathon line-up of pop art promotional posters for the Games, they were following a well-trodden track.

Back in 1972, for the Munich Olympics, the likes of David Hockney and Allen Jones fabricated flyers for an event dubbed "the Happy Games" due to the West German government's anxiety to reframe the country's new democratic political landscape – the 1936 Games, in Berlin, had been overseen by the Nazi regime.

Richard Hamilton's Adonis in Y Fronts may be the most memorable of the posters, but the games are indelibly tainted by a massacre which killed 11 Israeli athletes. The tragedy was the focus of a Steven Spielberg film, Munich, in 2005.

Collectors have contributed official trainers, bags, notebooks, crayons and stamps to this meeting of art and sport. Even a somewhat out-of-date can of Coke features.

The show symbolises Wolverhampton's status as one of the host towns and cities for the Olympic Flame, which will visit the Black Country on June 30.

• Open 10am-5pm. Free.