Calder: Chess Knightmares, 2025

Cahiers d’Art is proud to announce Calder: Chess Knightmares, a publication that explores Calder’s wild and irreverent vision of chess. Featuring never-before-published drawings, essays by Jed Perl and Alexander S. C. Rower, and rare archival materials, this book offers a fresh perspective on Calder’s art and friendships.

Mischief on the Chessboard

At the heart of the book is The Knightmares Portfolio, nearly fifty explosive ink drawings created in 1944. Calder’s Kings, Queens, Knights, Bishops, Rooks, and Pawns abandon the rules entirely—embracing mischief, seduction, violence, and absurdity.

These works echo the dark humor of Alfred Jarry and the surreal world of Calder’s friend Luis Buñuel. Duchamp, ever the chess devotee, even suggested alternate titles for several of the drawings, underlining the wit and inventiveness of the series.

Calder & Duchamp

The book also explores Calder’s decades-long friendship with Duchamp, and their collaboration in the groundbreaking exhibition The Imagery of Chess. Art critic Jed Perl reflects on Calder’s transformation of chess from a “reasonable” game into a comic, unsettling spectacle. Alexander S. C. Rower contributes an imagined dialogue with Duchamp, shedding new light on their artistic kinship.

The volume is enriched with archival photographs, original ephemera, and detailed documentation of Calder’s sculptural chess sets. A selected chronology (1931–1968) traces the evolving fascination both artists shared for chess as metaphor, medium, and lifelong pursuit.

A Legacy with Cahiers d’Art

Calder’s history with Cahiers d’Art began in the 1930s, when founder Christian Zervos first published his work. Over the following years, Calder featured in pivotal issues, including the 1939 essay Mobiles en mouvement and Gabrielle Buffet’s 1945 profile Sandy Calder, forgeron lunaire. That long friendship continues today with Calder Chess Knightmares.