The Imagery of chess: a group exhibition of paintings, sculpture, newly designed chessman, music, and miscellany

Description

This exhibition brochure exemplifies Marcel Duchamp’s creative ability to combine the seemingly opposing worlds of chess and avant-garde art. The show took place at Julien Levy’s gallery in New York, which provided a platform to many Surrealists and ensured their work would be seen in the American market. Inspired by their shared love of chess, Levy and Duchamp invited artists to create their own interpretations of a chess set—a challenge at the time, given the material shortages caused by World War II. The resulting works include Duchamp’s Pocket Chess, Max Ernst’s wooden set, which inspired the red silhouettes on the brochure’s cover; and Isamu Noguchi’s Chess Table, although its pieces have been lost. The back of the brochure features a chessboard labeled with the theory of sister squares along with the theory’s end game moves, which Duchamp wrote an entire theoretical book about, with champion chess player Vitaly Halberstadt.

Medium

Offset lithograph on single folded sheet