Calder : Chess Knightmares

Alexander Calder's (1898–1976) history with Cahiers d'Art began in the 1930s, when Christian Zervos first published the American artist's work. In the years that followed, Calder appeared in several notable issues, including the 1939 essay Mobiles en mouvement and the 1945 portrait of Gabrielle Buffet Sandy Calder, forgeron lunaire. 

This new book continues this long friendship and explores Calder's wild and irreverent vision of chess. At the heart of the book is The Knightmares Portfolio, nearly fifty ink drawings created in 1944. Calder's kings, queens, knights, bishops, rooks, and pawns abandon the rules entirely, embracing mischief, seduction, violence, and absurdity. 
The volume is enriched with archival photographs, original ephemera, and detailed documentation of Calder's sculptural chess sets. It also analyses the decades-long friendship between Calder and Duchamp, as well as their collaboration on the exhibition The Imagery of Chess. A selective chronology (1931-1968) traces the evolution of the two artists' shared fascination with chess as a metaphor, a means of expression and an ongoing quest.