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拍品專文
cf. M. Eidelberg, Design 1935-1965: What Modern Was, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1991, pp. 107-108 for an illustrations of the model;
A. von Vegesack, et al., eds., 100 Masterpieces from the Vitra Design Museum Collection, exhibition catalogue, Weil am Rhein, 1996, p. 149 for illustrations of the model;
L. List, ed., The Imagery of Chess Revisited, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2005, pp. iv, 120 and 129 for illustrations of this model, pp. 127-136 for more information on the chess table.
Designed for the 1944 exhibition, The Imagery of Chess, Isamu Noguchi's chess table, is an extraordinary example of his longstanding impassioned desire to incorporate his sculptural vision into serviceable forms.
A legendary event in its own day, The Imagery of Chess exhibition was conceived by the New York dealer Julien Levy and artists Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp. The oldest and most universally played game, chess, and its psychology, fascinated the Dadaists and Surrealists and the exhibition was envisioned with aspirations of redesigning the standard chess set as well as exploring chess imagery and symbolism. The exhibition, which included works from a veritable directory of the era's most notable avant-guard artists, including Yves Tanguy, André Breton, Alexander Calder, Arshile Gorky and Noguchi, resulted in the production of some of today's best known artist chess sets.
In an era of wartime privation, Noguchi's chess table was made from available materials; veneer plywood, aluminum and acrylic plastic. Its curvaceous table-top, with dots designating the chessboard spaces, surmounted an irregularly shaped four-legged base designed so the chess pieces could be stowed underneath in undulating cast aluminum compartments.
The table is made from parts, which are 'notched together.' Noguchi learned this 'no nails, no glue' joinery as a child in Japan and its use in the chess table foreshadows a new approach to sculpture which was integral to the renowned series of interlocking sculptures he created in the mid to late 1940s and which can also be seen in the Dretzin table of 1948-49 (lot 175). The chess table is also designed to be collapsible; perhaps influenced by Japanese construction as well as the set design work he did with Martha Graham in the late 1930s and 1940s.
Lauded by many, Newsweek declared that with his chess table Noguchi had "created the most beautiful piece in the show" and on The Imagery of Chess, exhibition's opening night, the architect and furniture designer George Nelson, swiftly purchased Noguchi's contribution for $300. In 1947 Nelson, who had become director of Design at Herman Miller in 1945, convinced the modernist furniture manufacturing company to commercially produce Noguchi's chess table but only a limited number were ever fabricated and few examples are known to exist.
A. von Vegesack, et al., eds., 100 Masterpieces from the Vitra Design Museum Collection, exhibition catalogue, Weil am Rhein, 1996, p. 149 for illustrations of the model;
L. List, ed., The Imagery of Chess Revisited, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2005, pp. iv, 120 and 129 for illustrations of this model, pp. 127-136 for more information on the chess table.
Designed for the 1944 exhibition, The Imagery of Chess, Isamu Noguchi's chess table, is an extraordinary example of his longstanding impassioned desire to incorporate his sculptural vision into serviceable forms.
A legendary event in its own day, The Imagery of Chess exhibition was conceived by the New York dealer Julien Levy and artists Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp. The oldest and most universally played game, chess, and its psychology, fascinated the Dadaists and Surrealists and the exhibition was envisioned with aspirations of redesigning the standard chess set as well as exploring chess imagery and symbolism. The exhibition, which included works from a veritable directory of the era's most notable avant-guard artists, including Yves Tanguy, André Breton, Alexander Calder, Arshile Gorky and Noguchi, resulted in the production of some of today's best known artist chess sets.
In an era of wartime privation, Noguchi's chess table was made from available materials; veneer plywood, aluminum and acrylic plastic. Its curvaceous table-top, with dots designating the chessboard spaces, surmounted an irregularly shaped four-legged base designed so the chess pieces could be stowed underneath in undulating cast aluminum compartments.
The table is made from parts, which are 'notched together.' Noguchi learned this 'no nails, no glue' joinery as a child in Japan and its use in the chess table foreshadows a new approach to sculpture which was integral to the renowned series of interlocking sculptures he created in the mid to late 1940s and which can also be seen in the Dretzin table of 1948-49 (lot 175). The chess table is also designed to be collapsible; perhaps influenced by Japanese construction as well as the set design work he did with Martha Graham in the late 1930s and 1940s.
Lauded by many, Newsweek declared that with his chess table Noguchi had "created the most beautiful piece in the show" and on The Imagery of Chess, exhibition's opening night, the architect and furniture designer George Nelson, swiftly purchased Noguchi's contribution for $300. In 1947 Nelson, who had become director of Design at Herman Miller in 1945, convinced the modernist furniture manufacturing company to commercially produce Noguchi's chess table but only a limited number were ever fabricated and few examples are known to exist.