Edited by Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell. Text by Dylan Loeb McClain, Viswanathan Anand. Essay by Martin Amis.
A photobook dedicated to players throughout time who have tried their hand at the beloved cerebral game, featuring text penned by chess enthusiast and acclaimed author Martin Amis
This is a book for chess Grandmasters, novices and inquiring laymen alike. It is a book for anyone who has wondered, as Martin Amis wryly asks in his contributing text, “What are they playing at?” Marcel Duchamp’s iconic quote, “All chess players are artists,” resonates throughout the volume. David Hockney likened the game’s strategic thinking to that of making art: “Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.” “Chess is war over the board,” said Bobby Fischer, Grandmaster and World Chess Champion, but here John Lennon and Yoko Ono checkmate this notion, with their all-white chess “peace” set. Chess Players: From Charlie Chaplin to Wu-Tang Clan compiles photographs of notable figures playing the beloved game of strategy over the course of 130 years. The volume strings together zany and remarkable moments in time. In one image, players are captured on board a steamship crossing the Atlantic in 1888; in another, an astronaut studies a board in space. And, as the title suggests, Hollywood celebrities frequent the book’s pages, playing chess on and off the screen: Humphrey Bogart deploys a Sicilian Defense against Lauren Bacall, while Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen plot their next gambit in the iconic chess seduction scene from The Thomas Crown Affair (1968). Featuring an introduction by Dylan Loeb McClain, former chess columnist for the New York Times, the photographs in Chess Players evince the enduring attraction of this cerebral game. The volume also features an interview with Viswanathan Anand, who is inarguably one of the greatest chess players in history.
Featured image, New York City, 1958, is reproduced from 'Chess Players.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
The Guardian
Sarah Gilbert
An incredible collection of photographs documenting the intersection between chess and culture.
in stock $37.95
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On the fascination scale, it’s hard to beat new release Chess Players: From Charlie Chaplin to Wu-Tang Clan from London-based photobook phenomenon, FUEL publishing. Collecting exactly what it purports to—photographs of chess obsessives either famous in the chess world, famous in the real world, or totally, gloriously unknown—it is rich with captions and contexts that allow the reader to tap in to that notoriously intellectual gamesmanship that has crossed both centuries and continents. “This photograph, taken on 25 November 1969, shows Donna Gaines, who later rose to international super stardom as Donna Summer (‘Queen of Disco’), playing chess with her colleague and companion at the time, Ron Williams. She had just been offered a recording contract after finishing a stint in the German production of the musical Hair. She achieved global success almost exactly seven years later with the release of the single ‘Love to Love You Baby’ (1975).” continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 7 x 9.5 in. / 196 pgs / 31 color / 124 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $37.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $54.95 ISBN: 9781739887865 PUBLISHER: FUEL AVAILABLE: 9/17/2024 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Chess Players From Charlie Chaplin to Wu-Tang Clan
Published by FUEL. Edited by Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell. Text by Dylan Loeb McClain, Viswanathan Anand. Essay by Martin Amis.
A photobook dedicated to players throughout time who have tried their hand at the beloved cerebral game, featuring text penned by chess enthusiast and acclaimed author Martin Amis
This is a book for chess Grandmasters, novices and inquiring laymen alike. It is a book for anyone who has wondered, as Martin Amis wryly asks in his contributing text, “What are they playing at?”
Marcel Duchamp’s iconic quote, “All chess players are artists,” resonates throughout the volume. David Hockney likened the game’s strategic thinking to that of making art: “Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.” “Chess is war over the board,” said Bobby Fischer, Grandmaster and World Chess Champion, but here John Lennon and Yoko Ono checkmate this notion, with their all-white chess “peace” set.
Chess Players: From Charlie Chaplin to Wu-Tang Clan compiles photographs of notable figures playing the beloved game of strategy over the course of 130 years. The volume strings together zany and remarkable moments in time. In one image, players are captured on board a steamship crossing the Atlantic in 1888; in another, an astronaut studies a board in space. And, as the title suggests, Hollywood celebrities frequent the book’s pages, playing chess on and off the screen: Humphrey Bogart deploys a Sicilian Defense against Lauren Bacall, while Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen plot their next gambit in the iconic chess seduction scene from The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).
Featuring an introduction by Dylan Loeb McClain, former chess columnist for the New York Times, the photographs in Chess Players evince the enduring attraction of this cerebral game. The volume also features an interview with Viswanathan Anand, who is inarguably one of the greatest chess players in history.
