Modern & Designer Sets

Chess sets made in the steerage of 20th C artist movements . which led many an artist to design chess sets, from Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and Man Ray onwards. Nowadays, it is more "designers" who try their hand at editing "their" chess set .. is it a matter of professional pride, or chess addicition?

Black & White

Not the whiskey - it is abstract modern chessmen, look like lipsticks, made from massive steel cups and some kind of ceramic heat-hardened material. Quite an achievement, one wonders... a rather trite board in a massive sheet metal board came along. Not playable, not very stable pieces, but quite showy set, and recognizeable pieces.

Uprights

Svelte and fetching chessmen, with unique traits. Kings stand 105 mm, the royalty and bishops appear fragile, but are quite sturdy. Reminiscent of the famous Austrian Uprights used in the Lasker-Schlechter World Championship Match - but are these pieces really from Austria? The idea one gets is Central Europa... but they just might be reevocations from that unknown chess continent Russia....

Occasional

Simple modernist set from the first half of the 20th C - interesting features, and good size for playing with kings at 87 mm height. I especially favor the bishops, with a somewhat innovative top, and the flat pawn tops....

Jugendstil Hybrid

Most unusual set, with features of many traits (austrian, german, french). I would tentatively place it as german, and date it anywhere between 1900 and 1930.....

Bauhaus

Not the original (??) authenticated set from the Weimar Bauhaus, nor the modern licensed edition by Naef, but one of the many nameless copies of what started most probably as an exercise for the pupils in Josef Hartwig's Bauhaus carpentry shop. Two piece kings and queens, king height 49 mm.....

Modernist French Set

Modernist french set, in old box, with draught stones - king stands 73 mm - set is possibly from the 30ies to 40ies.

Expressionist

Beautifully finished, smoothly polished, no felts or weights. Knights and bishops are better distinguished at a distance - starts You wondering....

Smooth Pocket set

Very smoothly finished small chessmen, which have a quite modernist look to them - actually it is a mini-compendium with draughts stones, and a board with nine-mens morris imprinted on the rear. But on the bottom of the rough wood case a dedication is pencilled, with the date of 1.2.1940! Certainly prewar WW2, made in Germany.

Abstract Glass

Minimalist glass set from Portugal - faintly reminiscent of Yves Tanguy's set from the 40ies in New York.

Tuscan Abstracts

Thanks to big alabaster deposits, fashioning handcrafted objects is craft with a millennarian tradition in Volterra in Tuscany, Italy. The opaque white material is coloured by a special process of soaking, gaining the most exotic colours. This set - king 76 mm - also is reminiscent of Yves Tanguy , has metal bands around the bottom, felts, and is most likely from the 60ies to 70ies. Alabaster sets from Volterra are exported worldwide, mainly by the house of Chiellini.