Art Institute of Chicago

Chess Set

Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky) · 1927

Provenance

Ownership history

Commissioned in 1926 by Yashwant Rao II, Holkar Bahador, Maharaja of Indore (1908–1961), and realized by the artist in 1927; Timothy Baum, New York, by 1991 [correspondence in curatorial file]; purchased by the Art Institute, 1991.

Recorded by Art Institute of Chicago.

Exhibitions

Paris, Musée des Arts décoratifs, Moderne Maharajah: un mécène des années 1930, Sept. 26, 2019–Jan. 12, 2020, no cat. no.

Literature

Arturo Schwarz, Man Ray: The Rigour of Imagination (New York: Rizzoli, 1977), 203.
James N. Wood and Teri J. Edelstein, eds., The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1996), 60 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter, ed., American Modernism at The Art Institute of Chicago: From World War I to 1955 (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago and Yale University Press, 2009), 94–96, cat. 30 (color ill.).
Stephanie D'Alessandro and Renée DeVoe Mertz, The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2014), 123 (ill.).
Manuel Segade, ed., Endgame: Duchamp, Chess and the Avant-Gardes, exh cat. (Barcelona: Fundació Joan Miró, 2016), 144.
Raphaèle Billé and Louise Curtis, eds. Moderne maharajah: un mécène des années 1930, exh. cat. (Paris: Musée des arts décoratifs, 2019), 24, (color ill.).
Larry List, Permanent Attraction: Man Ray & Chess: Dada & Surrealist Chess Art (Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2025), 34, fig. 6.6, 35, fig. 6.5 and fig. 6.6 (color ill.), 36, fig. 6.6, 38, fig. 6.5 and 6.6.

Comparables