Description:

At 4 Church Road, Wimbledon Park, London lies the most photographed patch of grass in history. Spanning 78 by 36 feet, it’s been the stage for not only the oldest tennis tournament in the world but the progression of historical, social, and cultural change too.

This year marked 100 years since King George V declared Centre Court open. And to celebrate, Wimbledon partnered with Glorious, Aotearoa’s leading digital art marketplace, to launch a collection that celebrated the rich history of the hallowed grounds.

Introducing The Centenary Collection. 10 decades, 10 digital artworks, 100 years through the lens of Centre Court.

This was an ambitious project, distilling and sorting through multiple archives with hundreds of thousands of historic photographs to produce artworks akin to photo essays, each telling the most important Wimbledon stories.

Presented in contact sheet-inspired layouts, each photograph was lovingly restored to the medium it was captured in. Working alongside Wimbledon's historians to research, re-scan, and re-build images, our process was painstaking but worth it for the exceptional set of photographs that emerged.

Accompanying the final selected images are short annotations and footnotes, which give further context to the moment depicted. To ensure these were executed in era-appropriate lettering styles, we worked with one of New Zealand’s most respected calligraphers to bring these to life, flourishing the images with scribbles and gestural marks to further channel the personality of each decade.

To achieve authentic-looking imperfections, we also experimented with different types of pen and ink, from the stylographs of the 1920s, through to the bold permanent markers of the 1990s, and finally transitioning to completely digital lettering using a stylus for the 21st century.

And to further reflect how Wimbledon has evolved throughout the years, we had an archivist source logos from historic tournament material. Each logo was restored and given its own distinct style and identity. Gold foiling, stamping, stickering, and engraving, to name a few techniques.
Upon launch, The Centenary Collection was celebrated by tennis fans across the world and received global media attention in the likes of Complex and The Independent.

At the time of this award submission, the ballot to purchase just one of these incredible digital artworks (RRP: £500) had over 40,000 entries. And with only 1,000 lucky applicants given this once-in-a-century opportunity to buy, the collection is sure to sell out.