Chess Players

An incredible collection of images of chess players from the last 130 years, showcasing the unique relationship between chess and culture, featuring world famous actors, artists, politicians and musicians.

You don’t have to play chess to appreciate Chess Players: from Charlie Chaplin to Wu-Tang Clan, but as Martin Amis asks in his illuminating essay: What are they playing at?’

These evocative photographs transcend the chessboard, spanning 130 years – from a steamship crossing the Atlantic in 1888, to the zero-gravity of space – showcasing the diverse range of individuals who have embraced the game across continents and eras.

Marcel Duchamp’s iconic quote, ‘All chess players are artists,' resonates through these pages. David Hockney likened the games strategic thinking to that of making art 'Drawing is rather like playing chess: your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.'

'Chess is war over the board', said Bobby Fischer (grand master and world chess champion) – but here John Lennon and Yoko Ono checkmate this notion, with their all-white, chess ‘peace’ set.

Hollywood stars played chess on and off the screen – Humphrey Bogart deploys a Sicilian Defence against Lauren Bacall, while Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen plot their next gambit in the iconic chess seduction scene from 'The Thomas Crown Affair' (1968).

With an introduction by Dylan Loeb McClain, former chess columnist for The New York Times, the photographs in Chess Players help explain the enduring attraction of this cerebral game, from pawn to king, amateur to grandmaster.