Bowdoin College Museum of Art | - The Imagery of Chess

Preview image of work. printed red and black ink on thin buff paper, The Imagery of Chess 30622

2016.16.3

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The Imagery of Chess

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Artist

Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968)

Title

The Imagery of Chess

Creation Date

1944

Century

mid-20th century

Dimensions

15 7/16 x 9 7/16 in. (39 x 24 cm)

Object Type

Creation Place

North America, United States

Medium and Support

printed red and black ink on thin buff paper

Credit Line

Museum Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

2016.16.3

One of the first gallerists to create thematic exhibitions complete with announcements, Julien Levy commissioned these notices from Marcel Duchamp in honor of Through the Big End of the Opera Glass (1943) and The Imagery of Chess (1944-45), shortly after the artist relocated to the United States from France during World War II. Each notice celebrates multiple artists, including, in the case of Through the Big End of the Opera Glass, examples of their work. Duchamp’s contribution is perhaps the most playful, consisting of an interplay between front and back: a miniature Cupid, based on a hand-rendered design by Duchamp, playfully points at a chess problem, printed on the opposite side of the translucent paper. Having crafted a conundrum apparently designed to be insoluble, Duchamp may playfully be alluding, as scholar Francis Naumann has noted, to his famous quip: “There is no solution because there is no problem."