Rare New Old Stock Man Ray Chess Set, circa 1971. The actual version for sale remains unopened, in mint condition, with all original packaging & heavy duty felt lined black box (only the outer box has signs of age/wear). These were the ONLY sets reproduced with the permission of Man Ray during his lifetime.
Man Ray designed this chess set in 1920 using found objects from his studio. Most of the pieces are geometric models made for still-life drawing (the king is a pyramid, the queen a cone, the rook a cube, the pawn a sphere). The knight, the finial of a violin, was fashioned from a box of abandoned violin necks. Only a handful were ever produced (the Maharaja of Indore commissioned a set made from silver-plated brass). This re-edition is rendered in beechwood, as Man Ray originally intended, and is based on the original set housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This set features 32 beautifully carved solid beechwood pieces in a lucite display box with complete documentation (justification text card, display instructions and black & white photograph signed “MM” with a unique serial number on the reverse), published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, individually reproduced (with Man Ray’s approval) for the Museum by sculptor Nikola Nikolov, circa 1971. SPECS: 12” x 8” x 4”. DM to purchase.
Emmanuel Radnitzky, by far better known by his iconic pseudonym of Man Ray (1890-1976), was an American artist whose innovative work established him as the leading figure behind the concepts of Dada and Surrealism, as well as for the rest of the early avant-garde art. Heavily influenced by the artworks of European authors such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, Radnitzky was one of the few American artists to truly be accepted as the leading source of creative ideas on the Old Continent.
Designed in 1920 and recreated by expert craftsmen Nikola Nikolov, these pieces are comprised of abstract geometric forms. Philadelphia-born, Brooklyn-raised, Dada-Surrealist artist Man Ray created sets from 1920 till his death in 1976. The pyramid is the Egyptian symbol of kingship and the cone a medieval queen's headgear. The flagon represented the bishops' tradition of creating exotic liqueurs and spirits. The knight is fashioned after the head scroll of a violin and the pawns are as tall as the rooks and almost as volumetrically robust as many of the other pieces that are higher ranked to show the increased importance of pawns in modern chess play.
Very few of these original sets are still available for purchase and when they are, they command six-figure prices at auction. Man Ray is hailed as one of 20th century's most innovative artists. Son of a Russian immigrant tailor, Man Ray's artwork was far ahead of its time so he lived modestly his whole life. His vision was to design a simple, straightforward, but modern and affordable chess set.
