Hola Living Man Ray Chess Set

This Man Ray Chess Set is featured in Hola Living Magazine, a lifestyle Spanish magazine focused on leisure, traveling, gastronomy and ecology.

The Man Ray Chess Set highlights Phildadelphia-born, Brooklyn- raised, Dada-Surrealist artist Man Ray who created sets from 1920 till his passing in 1976.

Very few of these original sets are still available for purchase and when they are, they command prices at auctions of tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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.

Man Ray's original design was the first modern set comprised of all abstract geometric forms. The sets found here are copied perfectly by expert craftsmen from both Germany and Italy.

These pieces, that will reintroduce you to the game of chess, each have a special association.

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. Moreover, they are 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.

Interestingly the knight piece, fashioned as the scroll of a violin, is sourced uniquely from a violin manufacturer in Italy where the expertise and tooling is most suited. It is then joined with the rest of the beech wood set crafted in Germany.

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