The British Chess Federation (BCF), founded in 1904, is the organisation that controls, directs and promotes the playing of chess in England. It is recognised as such by the UK government as well as the World Chess Federation (FIDE). Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the Channel Islands have their own federations.®

British Chess Federation

The Watch Oak, Chain Lane, Battle, East Sussex TN33 0YD.
                 Tel: 01424 775222, Fax: 01424 775904, Email: office@bcf.org.uk
What's New News Calendar Events Grand Prix Grading Clubs Etc Organisation Membership Products Articles Sponsors Links

The Gilbert Collection Trust
Somerset House
Strand, London
WC2R 1LA
Telephone: 020 7420 9400
Facsimile: 020 7420 9440
www.gilbert-collection.org.uk

Last update: Tuesday December 2, 2003 12:51

The Art of Chess at the Gilbert Collection

Exhibition of Chess Sets by Major Artists from Fabergé to Hirst
Extended until end November

The fascinating and multi-faceted exhibition The Art of Chess, which opened at the Gilbert Collection, Somerset House, London, on 28 June and was due to close at the end of September, has proved so successful that it will remain open to the public until 30 November 2003. The Art of Chess features nineteen chess sets designed by very different artists over the last hundred years and illustrates how this most challenging of games continues to inspire artists as it did in earlier centuries. The exhibition is generously supported by Oleg Deripaska.

The Art of Chess is proving to be intriguing to chess enthusiasts and art lovers alike. The installation is also fascinating as each set illustrates a move in the apocryphal last game played by Napoleon against General Bertrand on St Helena in 1820. The show has attracted praise from all quarters being described as ‘an intriguing and brilliantly conceived exhibition’, by The Sunday Telegraph, 6 July, and ‘an engaging and entertaining conceit’, Evening Standard, 27 June.

On public view for the first time are five chess sets designed by leading contemporary artists Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Paul McCarthy, Yayoi Kusama and Maurizio Cattelan. These new works were specially commissioned for the exhibition by RS&A Ltd, curators of the exhibition, and are set in context by chess sets designed during the 20th century by such major artists as Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, Alexander Calder and Yoko Ono.

There are several Russian sets including the only known Fabergé chess set made circa 1905 and one dating from the 19th century which was carved from mammoth ivory in a village near Arkhangerl’sk. From the 1920s are two remarkable Russian Revolutionary porcelain chess sets that reflect the social conflicts of the time: Collective Farm and Town and Capitalists versus Communists.

Chess is believed to have originated around the 7th century in India or Persia and derived from an earlier Indian game. After reaching Arab countries it had spread all over western Europe by the 10th century. No other game in history has been so widely reflected in art and literature around the world. The Art of Chess demonstrates that in the 20th and 21st centuries chess has lost none of its inspirational power.

‘From my close contact with artists and chess players I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.’ Marcel Duchamp, Cazenovia, 1952