In 1944, Calder made an idiosyncratic series of drawings called the Chess Knightmares, four of which were shown in Julien Levy’s exhibition The Imagery of Chess, along with a few of his chess sets. “The chess drawings were highly unusual for Calder,” writes Jed Perl. “In place of his habitual way of drawing the figure with lines looping out of thin air, he constructed solid and at times highly animated figures ... He really went to town with his king, queen, knights, and bishops. He was thinking about them not as pieces of wood, metal, or ivory, but as flesh-and-blood figures moving across the surface of the chessboard, which he conceived in a relatively traditional manner as a pavement set down in perspectival space.” Image: The Melée (1944). © 2022 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York #Calder #AlexanderCalder #CalderFoundation