Of the many chess set designs made by major 20th century Modern artists few were both as innovative and deeply rooted in tradition as the chess set and table ensemble created by sculptor Isamu Noguchi for the 1944 Imagery of Chess exhibition in New York, organized by Julien Levy, Marcel Duchamp, and Max Ernst.
The wartime scarcity of quality materials both limited and inspired Noguchi. Scarcity led him to fashion these pieces from a new experimental wartime material developed to mass produce clear aircraft canopies and gun turrets–plexiglass.
His design echoed the Persian and Indian chess forms. Instead of regular Western black and white pieces, Noguchi made his figures of translucent red and green plexiglass to echo rubies and emeralds. The original board was a black ebonized table with white circular inlays.
This new edition of the 1944 Noguchi Chess Set is accompanied by an attractive black Perspex folding board with red and translucent white circular inlays, modeled after the artist’s original tabletop design. The pieces are made from plexiglass with the king measuring 3"H. The folding board measures 22"x 24".
also available;
Isamu Noguchi: Stones and Paper (DVD)
A Boy Named Isamu
