CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/16/2024

From Grandmasters to method actors, 'Chess Players' presents the pure pleasure of the most serious game

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).”