Artikelnummer
LXFIATCBOMD2
Autor
The Chess Biography of Marcel Duchamp
Road to Chess Mastery (1926-1930)
451 Seiten, gebunden, Caissa 90-Olomouc, 2004
Introduction
The second volume of our monograph on the chess career of Marcel Duchamp begins in 1926 and includes the years to the end of 1930. In that period, as Duchamp himself several times said and it was confirmed by many of his major biographers, he was fascinated with chess.
Chess and fine art or, from the aspect of art historians, fine art and chess, completely dominated Duchamp's private life. He is interested in nothing else, unable to concentrate on anything else, and nothing and no-one can separate him from these two greatest loves in his life. None of his friends was therefore very surprised that after his unexpected marriage to the daughter of an industrialist in 1927 he got a divorce several months later. Many years later Duchamp made a succinct statement about his marriage: boredom. There's no need to condemn this assessment.
Both chess play and his work on new art projects brought Duchamp excitement from seeking and finding. In this respect chess and art are fairly close. His intensive activity in chess and fine art brings him continual ecstasy and a profound feeling of creative self-realization, enabling him to create and perceive the beauty of chess and art. And Duchamp undoubtedly was a great artist.
M. Duchamp's view of chess and his art was fairly complex. He became fully addicted to chess playing, in each game he sought thrill and especially unrealised beauty. Only those few players, who penetrate to the depth of chess art, can infuse the wooden pieces on the chess board with real life and give them a particular destiny. They are no longer lifeless pieces - pawns, bishops, knights, rooks, the queen and the king - but a well functioning army in which each individual has his place and role in the decisive battle. M. Duchamp had crossed this border. He became a great commander who sent his courageous formations into a destructive fight. Offensive skirmishes and long strategic battles became an inseparable part of his life. It is therefore logical that on the chessboard he could find artistic inspiration and therefore chess motifs often appeared in his art. Chess and fine art completely filled his life so that marriage to however beautiful a wife who lacked this deep experience must have appeared to him monotonous.
The first volume of the chess biography of M. Duchamp ended with his splendid achievement in the 3rd Championship of France at Nice, where he won the title of master of the Fédération Francaise des Échecs (F.F.E.). Gaining this title only deepened his dependence on chess so that he seriously considered a career as a professional chess player. To get into the French chess elite, however, was more difficult than it at first seemed.
Between 1926 and 1930 M. Duchamp attended many important chess tournaments and contests in which he tried to improve his position among French players. In 1927 and 1928 he participated in the championship of France, in 1928 and 1930 represented France at chess olympiads at The Hague and in Hamburg. In this period he also played in four international chess tournaments, at Hyéres, Nice and in Paris (1929, 1930).
In addition to these major tournaments he attended numerous club tournaments and local competitions, team contests (for the title of Paris champion) and friendly team matches. Besides active chess play, as an F.F.E. delegate he began to devote much energy to the organization of chess events. For five years he assiduously tried to win recognition in competition with French players and thus confirm his chess ambition. Unfortunately, in many cases his results were not up to his expectations. His attempt to win recognition among the French chess elite is the subject of practically the whole of Volume Two of this biographical monograph.
The book is logically divided into five main parts, arranged chronologically. The structure of each part is fairly similar. In each one, a subchapter deals with chess life in France and with M. Duchamp's chess activities in each year. Every major tournament or chess olympiad is treated in a separate chapter. Much attention is devoted to the course of each tournament and olympiad, both from the aspect of M. Duchamp and French chess history. In no case, however, is this an attempt to describe the full chess history of France in 1926-1930 because this monograph concentrates only on those French and international events that involved in a major way the chess career of M. Duchamp.
While the year 1926 does not abound in his chess activities, in the subsequent years M. Duchamp made an appearance at most major French chess tournaments. In 1927 he attended a minor local tournament in Nice, most probably in order to check his chess strength before the 5th Championship of France at Chamonix in September 1927. Soon afterwards, M. Duchamp attended one of the strongest Paris tournaments for individuals.
The year 1928 was no less crowded with chess events. M. Duchamp won the confidence of the F.F.E. and was chosen as a member of the French team that was to defend the French colours at the Olympiad at The Hague. In September 1928 he is to be found among the participants of the 6th Championship of France at Marseilles. After his partial failures in the preceding years, M. Duchamp in 1929 somewhat limited his chess activities but at the last moment was chosen to replace a French master who had cancelled his participation in one of the greatest international tournaments in Paris in the 1920s. Savielly Tartakover, George Thomas, Edgar Colle, George Koltanowski, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky and several more players contesting the international chess tournament in June 1929 were the European elite in the late 1920s.
In 1930 M. Duchamp played his greatest number of tournament games. His chess activity in that year started with the international tournament in Nice, followed by the international tournament in Paris in May 1930. In July 1930 as a member of the French team, headed by its captain Alexander Alekhine, he attended his second chess olympiad, in Hamburg.
The readers thus have a unique chance of watching not only the chess career of this great artist of the 20th century, but they can get an insight into the details of chess life in Paris clubs and in France in general. This book includes all available games by M. Duchamp that it was possible to discover, either separately or with the assistance of our chess friends, in various sources of the period. Much of this has never been published before in any similar monograph devoted to M. Duchamp's chess career. In addition to M. Duchamp's games, this book includes known, less well known and completely unknown games of leading French players from the tournaments competed in by M. Duchamp. Sometimes other major events are included which most probably were watched by M. Duchamp as a spectator or as an F.F.E. delegate. For ordinary lovers of chess history, many of these games are virtually inaccessible, being hidden in chess magazines and chess columns of various French dailies.
The period 1926-1930 must have been decisive for M. Duchamp's chess career. In spite of his efforts he was unable to move from the rank of a strong French player to the rank of a strong international chess master. It is difficult to find all the reasons for his failures - some are hinted at in the following chapters. What is, however, absolutely evident is that some time in the early 1930s, M. Duchamp realized that he had reached the height of his powers and had no real chance of winning recognition in top-level chess. As Volume Three of this monograph will show, this sad truth never separated him completely from chess. Over the following years, the intensity of his participation in chess tournaments declined but he discovered correspondence chess and became a chess journalist.
Volume Two of his biography is based on detailed knowledge of literature and magazines, as in Volume One. In the second volume more attention is paid to French sources because, with a few exceptions, M. Duchamp spent most of his life in 1926-1930 in France. Apart from the chess olympiads at The Hague and in Hamburg, M. Duchamp did not attend any foreign tournament. Among the main French chess sources are of course La Strategic, the main French chess monthly, and the Bulletin de la F.F.E. To the study of these two basic sources were added all the major French chess columns and they really, to a large degree, filled in the gaps in the facts and produced many hitherto unknown games by M. Duchamp. In the first place there should be mentioned the chess columns in the dailies Excelsior, Poslednie Novosti, L'Action Francaise, LeTemps, and several more. From local chess columns those in L'Eclaireur du Soir (Nice), Salut Public (Lyon), and Journal de Rouen were found to be indispensable. A complete bibliography appears at the end of this monograph.
Looking back to the first volume, a fundamental question arises, in which respect the second volume is different from its predecessor. In content and conception, the process has remained identical, but unlike in Volume One, here more attention has been paid to the technical aspects of the book. Besides an improvement in the language of the text we have unified the spelling of all names, towns and chess clubs and have produced an index of names and subjects, which undoubtedly will be found quite useful. The late chess historian, Kenneth Whyld, who had followed the development of this project with great interest, had read the first volume of this monograph shortly before he died. Nearly every page in that first volume contains his notes, corrections and suggestions for expansion of the text. It was he who reproached us for insufficient revision of names of people and places, a great many misprints, mistakes due to lack of attention, and the absence of name and subject indexes. I believe that in reading this second volume he would have been much more satisfied, even though despite great editing care, some errors and misprints are bound to remain in the text, having escaped the attention both of the editor and his many friends, who were asked to read the manuscript in advance.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the friends who were willing to help. Great thanks are due to Professor Jaroslav Peprník, PhD, without whose translation this book would not have appeared. Secondly, I owe my thanks to Tony Gillam of Nottingham, who did the principal proofreading and at that phase called my attention to mistakes that had crept into the text. Tony Gillam helped both with the text of the monograph and with the search for some lesser known games by M. Duchamp and by the French players from the chess olympiads. He was always ready to give valuable advice and share information with me.
A great assistance was offered by one of the major French chess historians and collectors of chess literature, Dr. Jean Mennerat. Thanks to his extensive chess library it was possible to obtain some inaccessible tournament tables, a good deal of unknown data about M. Duchamp's chess activities, and the games of French players from the 1926-1930 period.
Here, in advance, I should mention the assistance of chess friends from the USA, whose interesting discoveries, however, refer to M. Duchamp's career during his stay in the USA after 1942, which is to be the subject of Volume Three of this biographical project.
Finally, allow me to say that the greatest thanks are due to Mr. Bessel Kok, without whose financial and moral support and his immense patience and understanding this project would never have been realised and brought
(hopefully) to a successful conclusion. This second volume is being published about two years after the first, and the third volume is planned for late 2005. The research, originally planned for two years, will thus extend over six years. The termination of this project has had to be postponed because of the need for extended research in foreign libraries, especially in France and the U.S.A., and is also due to the heavier load of academic duties of the author. Still, Mr. Bessel Kok repeatedly expressed his full understanding and personal interest in the successful completion of the whole research project. Once more, many thanks for his patience and understanding.
The second volume of our monograph on the chess career of Marcel Duchamp begins in 1926 and includes the years to the end of 1930. In that period, as Duchamp himself several times said and it was confirmed by many of his major biographers, he was fascinated with chess.
Chess and fine art or, from the aspect of art historians, fine art and chess, completely dominated Duchamp's private life. He is interested in nothing else, unable to concentrate on anything else, and nothing and no-one can separate him from these two greatest loves in his life. None of his friends was therefore very surprised that after his unexpected marriage to the daughter of an industrialist in 1927 he got a divorce several months later. Many years later Duchamp made a succinct statement about his marriage: boredom. There's no need to condemn this assessment.
Both chess play and his work on new art projects brought Duchamp excitement from seeking and finding. In this respect chess and art are fairly close. His intensive activity in chess and fine art brings him continual ecstasy and a profound feeling of creative self-realization, enabling him to create and perceive the beauty of chess and art. And Duchamp undoubtedly was a great artist.
M. Duchamp's view of chess and his art was fairly complex. He became fully addicted to chess playing, in each game he sought thrill and especially unrealised beauty. Only those few players, who penetrate to the depth of chess art, can infuse the wooden pieces on the chess board with real life and give them a particular destiny. They are no longer lifeless pieces - pawns, bishops, knights, rooks, the queen and the king - but a well functioning army in which each individual has his place and role in the decisive battle. M. Duchamp had crossed this border. He became a great commander who sent his courageous formations into a destructive fight. Offensive skirmishes and long strategic battles became an inseparable part of his life. It is therefore logical that on the chessboard he could find artistic inspiration and therefore chess motifs often appeared in his art. Chess and fine art completely filled his life so that marriage to however beautiful a wife who lacked this deep experience must have appeared to him monotonous.
The first volume of the chess biography of M. Duchamp ended with his splendid achievement in the 3rd Championship of France at Nice, where he won the title of master of the Fédération Francaise des Échecs (F.F.E.). Gaining this title only deepened his dependence on chess so that he seriously considered a career as a professional chess player. To get into the French chess elite, however, was more difficult than it at first seemed.
Between 1926 and 1930 M. Duchamp attended many important chess tournaments and contests in which he tried to improve his position among French players. In 1927 and 1928 he participated in the championship of France, in 1928 and 1930 represented France at chess olympiads at The Hague and in Hamburg. In this period he also played in four international chess tournaments, at Hyéres, Nice and in Paris (1929, 1930).
In addition to these major tournaments he attended numerous club tournaments and local competitions, team contests (for the title of Paris champion) and friendly team matches. Besides active chess play, as an F.F.E. delegate he began to devote much energy to the organization of chess events. For five years he assiduously tried to win recognition in competition with French players and thus confirm his chess ambition. Unfortunately, in many cases his results were not up to his expectations. His attempt to win recognition among the French chess elite is the subject of practically the whole of Volume Two of this biographical monograph.
The book is logically divided into five main parts, arranged chronologically. The structure of each part is fairly similar. In each one, a subchapter deals with chess life in France and with M. Duchamp's chess activities in each year. Every major tournament or chess olympiad is treated in a separate chapter. Much attention is devoted to the course of each tournament and olympiad, both from the aspect of M. Duchamp and French chess history. In no case, however, is this an attempt to describe the full chess history of France in 1926-1930 because this monograph concentrates only on those French and international events that involved in a major way the chess career of M. Duchamp.
While the year 1926 does not abound in his chess activities, in the subsequent years M. Duchamp made an appearance at most major French chess tournaments. In 1927 he attended a minor local tournament in Nice, most probably in order to check his chess strength before the 5th Championship of France at Chamonix in September 1927. Soon afterwards, M. Duchamp attended one of the strongest Paris tournaments for individuals.
The year 1928 was no less crowded with chess events. M. Duchamp won the confidence of the F.F.E. and was chosen as a member of the French team that was to defend the French colours at the Olympiad at The Hague. In September 1928 he is to be found among the participants of the 6th Championship of France at Marseilles. After his partial failures in the preceding years, M. Duchamp in 1929 somewhat limited his chess activities but at the last moment was chosen to replace a French master who had cancelled his participation in one of the greatest international tournaments in Paris in the 1920s. Savielly Tartakover, George Thomas, Edgar Colle, George Koltanowski, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky and several more players contesting the international chess tournament in June 1929 were the European elite in the late 1920s.
In 1930 M. Duchamp played his greatest number of tournament games. His chess activity in that year started with the international tournament in Nice, followed by the international tournament in Paris in May 1930. In July 1930 as a member of the French team, headed by its captain Alexander Alekhine, he attended his second chess olympiad, in Hamburg.
The readers thus have a unique chance of watching not only the chess career of this great artist of the 20th century, but they can get an insight into the details of chess life in Paris clubs and in France in general. This book includes all available games by M. Duchamp that it was possible to discover, either separately or with the assistance of our chess friends, in various sources of the period. Much of this has never been published before in any similar monograph devoted to M. Duchamp's chess career. In addition to M. Duchamp's games, this book includes known, less well known and completely unknown games of leading French players from the tournaments competed in by M. Duchamp. Sometimes other major events are included which most probably were watched by M. Duchamp as a spectator or as an F.F.E. delegate. For ordinary lovers of chess history, many of these games are virtually inaccessible, being hidden in chess magazines and chess columns of various French dailies.
The period 1926-1930 must have been decisive for M. Duchamp's chess career. In spite of his efforts he was unable to move from the rank of a strong French player to the rank of a strong international chess master. It is difficult to find all the reasons for his failures - some are hinted at in the following chapters. What is, however, absolutely evident is that some time in the early 1930s, M. Duchamp realized that he had reached the height of his powers and had no real chance of winning recognition in top-level chess. As Volume Three of this monograph will show, this sad truth never separated him completely from chess. Over the following years, the intensity of his participation in chess tournaments declined but he discovered correspondence chess and became a chess journalist.
Volume Two of his biography is based on detailed knowledge of literature and magazines, as in Volume One. In the second volume more attention is paid to French sources because, with a few exceptions, M. Duchamp spent most of his life in 1926-1930 in France. Apart from the chess olympiads at The Hague and in Hamburg, M. Duchamp did not attend any foreign tournament. Among the main French chess sources are of course La Strategic, the main French chess monthly, and the Bulletin de la F.F.E. To the study of these two basic sources were added all the major French chess columns and they really, to a large degree, filled in the gaps in the facts and produced many hitherto unknown games by M. Duchamp. In the first place there should be mentioned the chess columns in the dailies Excelsior, Poslednie Novosti, L'Action Francaise, LeTemps, and several more. From local chess columns those in L'Eclaireur du Soir (Nice), Salut Public (Lyon), and Journal de Rouen were found to be indispensable. A complete bibliography appears at the end of this monograph.
Looking back to the first volume, a fundamental question arises, in which respect the second volume is different from its predecessor. In content and conception, the process has remained identical, but unlike in Volume One, here more attention has been paid to the technical aspects of the book. Besides an improvement in the language of the text we have unified the spelling of all names, towns and chess clubs and have produced an index of names and subjects, which undoubtedly will be found quite useful. The late chess historian, Kenneth Whyld, who had followed the development of this project with great interest, had read the first volume of this monograph shortly before he died. Nearly every page in that first volume contains his notes, corrections and suggestions for expansion of the text. It was he who reproached us for insufficient revision of names of people and places, a great many misprints, mistakes due to lack of attention, and the absence of name and subject indexes. I believe that in reading this second volume he would have been much more satisfied, even though despite great editing care, some errors and misprints are bound to remain in the text, having escaped the attention both of the editor and his many friends, who were asked to read the manuscript in advance.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the friends who were willing to help. Great thanks are due to Professor Jaroslav Peprník, PhD, without whose translation this book would not have appeared. Secondly, I owe my thanks to Tony Gillam of Nottingham, who did the principal proofreading and at that phase called my attention to mistakes that had crept into the text. Tony Gillam helped both with the text of the monograph and with the search for some lesser known games by M. Duchamp and by the French players from the chess olympiads. He was always ready to give valuable advice and share information with me.
A great assistance was offered by one of the major French chess historians and collectors of chess literature, Dr. Jean Mennerat. Thanks to his extensive chess library it was possible to obtain some inaccessible tournament tables, a good deal of unknown data about M. Duchamp's chess activities, and the games of French players from the 1926-1930 period.
Here, in advance, I should mention the assistance of chess friends from the USA, whose interesting discoveries, however, refer to M. Duchamp's career during his stay in the USA after 1942, which is to be the subject of Volume Three of this biographical project.
Finally, allow me to say that the greatest thanks are due to Mr. Bessel Kok, without whose financial and moral support and his immense patience and understanding this project would never have been realised and brought
(hopefully) to a successful conclusion. This second volume is being published about two years after the first, and the third volume is planned for late 2005. The research, originally planned for two years, will thus extend over six years. The termination of this project has had to be postponed because of the need for extended research in foreign libraries, especially in France and the U.S.A., and is also due to the heavier load of academic duties of the author. Still, Mr. Bessel Kok repeatedly expressed his full understanding and personal interest in the successful completion of the whole research project. Once more, many thanks for his patience and understanding.
Introduction
The second volume of our monograph on the chess career of Marcel Duchamp begins in 1926 and includes the years to the end of 1930. In that period, as Duchamp himself several times said and it was confirmed by many of his major biographers, he was fascinated with chess.
Chess and fine art or, from the aspect of art historians, fine art and chess, completely dominated Duchamp's private life. He is interested in nothing else, unable to concentrate on anything else, and nothing and no-one can separate him from these two greatest loves in his life. None of his friends was therefore very surprised that after his unexpected marriage to the daughter of an industrialist in 1927 he got a divorce several months later. Many years later Duchamp made a succinct statement about his marriage: boredom. There's no need to condemn this assessment.
Both chess play and his work on new art projects brought Duchamp excitement from seeking and finding. In this respect chess and art are fairly close. His intensive activity in chess and fine art brings him continual ecstasy and a profound feeling of creative self-realization, enabling him to create and perceive the beauty of chess and art. And Duchamp undoubtedly was a great artist.
M. Duchamp's view of chess and his art was fairly complex. He became fully addicted to chess playing, in each game he sought thrill and especially unrealised beauty. Only those few players, who penetrate to the depth of chess art, can infuse the wooden pieces on the chess board with real life and give them a particular destiny. They are no longer lifeless pieces - pawns, bishops, knights, rooks, the queen and the king - but a well functioning army in which each individual has his place and role in the decisive battle. M. Duchamp had crossed this border. He became a great commander who sent his courageous formations into a destructive fight. Offensive skirmishes and long strategic battles became an inseparable part of his life. It is therefore logical that on the chessboard he could find artistic inspiration and therefore chess motifs often appeared in his art. Chess and fine art completely filled his life so that marriage to however beautiful a wife who lacked this deep experience must have appeared to him monotonous.
The first volume of the chess biography of M. Duchamp ended with his splendid achievement in the 3rd Championship of France at Nice, where he won the title of master of the Fédération Francaise des Échecs (F.F.E.). Gaining this title only deepened his dependence on chess so that he seriously considered a career as a professional chess player. To get into the French chess elite, however, was more difficult than it at first seemed.
Between 1926 and 1930 M. Duchamp attended many important chess tournaments and contests in which he tried to improve his position among French players. In 1927 and 1928 he participated in the championship of France, in 1928 and 1930 represented France at chess olympiads at The Hague and in Hamburg. In this period he also played in four international chess tournaments, at Hyéres, Nice and in Paris (1929, 1930).
In addition to these major tournaments he attended numerous club tournaments and local competitions, team contests (for the title of Paris champion) and friendly team matches. Besides active chess play, as an F.F.E. delegate he began to devote much energy to the organization of chess events. For five years he assiduously tried to win recognition in competition with French players and thus confirm his chess ambition. Unfortunately, in many cases his results were not up to his expectations. His attempt to win recognition among the French chess elite is the subject of practically the whole of Volume Two of this biographical monograph.
The book is logically divided into five main parts, arranged chronologically. The structure of each part is fairly similar. In each one, a subchapter deals with chess life in France and with M. Duchamp's chess activities in each year. Every major tournament or chess olympiad is treated in a separate chapter. Much attention is devoted to the course of each tournament and olympiad, both from the aspect of M. Duchamp and French chess history. In no case, however, is this an attempt to describe the full chess history of France in 1926-1930 because this monograph concentrates only on those French and international events that involved in a major way the chess career of M. Duchamp.
While the year 1926 does not abound in his chess activities, in the subsequent years M. Duchamp made an appearance at most major French chess tournaments. In 1927 he attended a minor local tournament in Nice, most probably in order to check his chess strength before the 5th Championship of France at Chamonix in September 1927. Soon afterwards, M. Duchamp attended one of the strongest Paris tournaments for individuals.
The year 1928 was no less crowded with chess events. M. Duchamp won the confidence of the F.F.E. and was chosen as a member of the French team that was to defend the French colours at the Olympiad at The Hague. In September 1928 he is to be found among the participants of the 6th Championship of France at Marseilles. After his partial failures in the preceding years, M. Duchamp in 1929 somewhat limited his chess activities but at the last moment was chosen to replace a French master who had cancelled his participation in one of the greatest international tournaments in Paris in the 1920s. Savielly Tartakover, George Thomas, Edgar Colle, George Koltanowski, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky and several more players contesting the international chess tournament in June 1929 were the European elite in the late 1920s.
In 1930 M. Duchamp played his greatest number of tournament games. His chess activity in that year started with the international tournament in Nice, followed by the international tournament in Paris in May 1930. In July 1930 as a member of the French team, headed by its captain Alexander Alekhine, he attended his second chess olympiad, in Hamburg.
The readers thus have a unique chance of watching not only the chess career of this great artist of the 20th century, but they can get an insight into the details of chess life in Paris clubs and in France in general. This book includes all available games by M. Duchamp that it was possible to discover, either separately or with the assistance of our chess friends, in various sources of the period. Much of this has never been published before in any similar monograph devoted to M. Duchamp's chess career. In addition to M. Duchamp's games, this book includes known, less well known and completely unknown games of leading French players from the tournaments competed in by M. Duchamp. Sometimes other major events are included which most probably were watched by M. Duchamp as a spectator or as an F.F.E. delegate. For ordinary lovers of chess history, many of these games are virtually inaccessible, being hidden in chess magazines and chess columns of various French dailies.
The period 1926-1930 must have been decisive for M. Duchamp's chess career. In spite of his efforts he was unable to move from the rank of a strong French player to the rank of a strong international chess master. It is difficult to find all the reasons for his failures - some are hinted at in the following chapters. What is, however, absolutely evident is that some time in the early 1930s, M. Duchamp realized that he had reached the height of his powers and had no real chance of winning recognition in top-level chess. As Volume Three of this monograph will show, this sad truth never separated him completely from chess. Over the following years, the intensity of his participation in chess tournaments declined but he discovered correspondence chess and became a chess journalist.
Volume Two of his biography is based on detailed knowledge of literature and magazines, as in Volume One. In the second volume more attention is paid to French sources because, with a few exceptions, M. Duchamp spent most of his life in 1926-1930 in France. Apart from the chess olympiads at The Hague and in Hamburg, M. Duchamp did not attend any foreign tournament. Among the main French chess sources are of course La Strategic, the main French chess monthly, and the Bulletin de la F.F.E. To the study of these two basic sources were added all the major French chess columns and they really, to a large degree, filled in the gaps in the facts and produced many hitherto unknown games by M. Duchamp. In the first place there should be mentioned the chess columns in the dailies Excelsior, Poslednie Novosti, L'Action Francaise, LeTemps, and several more. From local chess columns those in L'Eclaireur du Soir (Nice), Salut Public (Lyon), and Journal de Rouen were found to be indispensable. A complete bibliography appears at the end of this monograph.
Looking back to the first volume, a fundamental question arises, in which respect the second volume is different from its predecessor. In content and conception, the process has remained identical, but unlike in Volume One, here more attention has been paid to the technical aspects of the book. Besides an improvement in the language of the text we have unified the spelling of all names, towns and chess clubs and have produced an index of names and subjects, which undoubtedly will be found quite useful. The late chess historian, Kenneth Whyld, who had followed the development of this project with great interest, had read the first volume of this monograph shortly before he died. Nearly every page in that first volume contains his notes, corrections and suggestions for expansion of the text. It was he who reproached us for insufficient revision of names of people and places, a great many misprints, mistakes due to lack of attention, and the absence of name and subject indexes. I believe that in reading this second volume he would have been much more satisfied, even though despite great editing care, some errors and misprints are bound to remain in the text, having escaped the attention both of the editor and his many friends, who were asked to read the manuscript in advance.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the friends who were willing to help. Great thanks are due to Professor Jaroslav Peprník, PhD, without whose translation this book would not have appeared. Secondly, I owe my thanks to Tony Gillam of Nottingham, who did the principal proofreading and at that phase called my attention to mistakes that had crept into the text. Tony Gillam helped both with the text of the monograph and with the search for some lesser known games by M. Duchamp and by the French players from the chess olympiads. He was always ready to give valuable advice and share information with me.
A great assistance was offered by one of the major French chess historians and collectors of chess literature, Dr. Jean Mennerat. Thanks to his extensive chess library it was possible to obtain some inaccessible tournament tables, a good deal of unknown data about M. Duchamp's chess activities, and the games of French players from the 1926-1930 period.
Here, in advance, I should mention the assistance of chess friends from the USA, whose interesting discoveries, however, refer to M. Duchamp's career during his stay in the USA after 1942, which is to be the subject of Volume Three of this biographical project.
Finally, allow me to say that the greatest thanks are due to Mr. Bessel Kok, without whose financial and moral support and his immense patience and understanding this project would never have been realised and brought
(hopefully) to a successful conclusion. This second volume is being published about two years after the first, and the third volume is planned for late 2005. The research, originally planned for two years, will thus extend over six years. The termination of this project has had to be postponed because of the need for extended research in foreign libraries, especially in France and the U.S.A., and is also due to the heavier load of academic duties of the author. Still, Mr. Bessel Kok repeatedly expressed his full understanding and personal interest in the successful completion of the whole research project. Once more, many thanks for his patience and understanding.
The second volume of our monograph on the chess career of Marcel Duchamp begins in 1926 and includes the years to the end of 1930. In that period, as Duchamp himself several times said and it was confirmed by many of his major biographers, he was fascinated with chess.
Chess and fine art or, from the aspect of art historians, fine art and chess, completely dominated Duchamp's private life. He is interested in nothing else, unable to concentrate on anything else, and nothing and no-one can separate him from these two greatest loves in his life. None of his friends was therefore very surprised that after his unexpected marriage to the daughter of an industrialist in 1927 he got a divorce several months later. Many years later Duchamp made a succinct statement about his marriage: boredom. There's no need to condemn this assessment.
Both chess play and his work on new art projects brought Duchamp excitement from seeking and finding. In this respect chess and art are fairly close. His intensive activity in chess and fine art brings him continual ecstasy and a profound feeling of creative self-realization, enabling him to create and perceive the beauty of chess and art. And Duchamp undoubtedly was a great artist.
M. Duchamp's view of chess and his art was fairly complex. He became fully addicted to chess playing, in each game he sought thrill and especially unrealised beauty. Only those few players, who penetrate to the depth of chess art, can infuse the wooden pieces on the chess board with real life and give them a particular destiny. They are no longer lifeless pieces - pawns, bishops, knights, rooks, the queen and the king - but a well functioning army in which each individual has his place and role in the decisive battle. M. Duchamp had crossed this border. He became a great commander who sent his courageous formations into a destructive fight. Offensive skirmishes and long strategic battles became an inseparable part of his life. It is therefore logical that on the chessboard he could find artistic inspiration and therefore chess motifs often appeared in his art. Chess and fine art completely filled his life so that marriage to however beautiful a wife who lacked this deep experience must have appeared to him monotonous.
The first volume of the chess biography of M. Duchamp ended with his splendid achievement in the 3rd Championship of France at Nice, where he won the title of master of the Fédération Francaise des Échecs (F.F.E.). Gaining this title only deepened his dependence on chess so that he seriously considered a career as a professional chess player. To get into the French chess elite, however, was more difficult than it at first seemed.
Between 1926 and 1930 M. Duchamp attended many important chess tournaments and contests in which he tried to improve his position among French players. In 1927 and 1928 he participated in the championship of France, in 1928 and 1930 represented France at chess olympiads at The Hague and in Hamburg. In this period he also played in four international chess tournaments, at Hyéres, Nice and in Paris (1929, 1930).
In addition to these major tournaments he attended numerous club tournaments and local competitions, team contests (for the title of Paris champion) and friendly team matches. Besides active chess play, as an F.F.E. delegate he began to devote much energy to the organization of chess events. For five years he assiduously tried to win recognition in competition with French players and thus confirm his chess ambition. Unfortunately, in many cases his results were not up to his expectations. His attempt to win recognition among the French chess elite is the subject of practically the whole of Volume Two of this biographical monograph.
The book is logically divided into five main parts, arranged chronologically. The structure of each part is fairly similar. In each one, a subchapter deals with chess life in France and with M. Duchamp's chess activities in each year. Every major tournament or chess olympiad is treated in a separate chapter. Much attention is devoted to the course of each tournament and olympiad, both from the aspect of M. Duchamp and French chess history. In no case, however, is this an attempt to describe the full chess history of France in 1926-1930 because this monograph concentrates only on those French and international events that involved in a major way the chess career of M. Duchamp.
While the year 1926 does not abound in his chess activities, in the subsequent years M. Duchamp made an appearance at most major French chess tournaments. In 1927 he attended a minor local tournament in Nice, most probably in order to check his chess strength before the 5th Championship of France at Chamonix in September 1927. Soon afterwards, M. Duchamp attended one of the strongest Paris tournaments for individuals.
The year 1928 was no less crowded with chess events. M. Duchamp won the confidence of the F.F.E. and was chosen as a member of the French team that was to defend the French colours at the Olympiad at The Hague. In September 1928 he is to be found among the participants of the 6th Championship of France at Marseilles. After his partial failures in the preceding years, M. Duchamp in 1929 somewhat limited his chess activities but at the last moment was chosen to replace a French master who had cancelled his participation in one of the greatest international tournaments in Paris in the 1920s. Savielly Tartakover, George Thomas, Edgar Colle, George Koltanowski, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky and several more players contesting the international chess tournament in June 1929 were the European elite in the late 1920s.
In 1930 M. Duchamp played his greatest number of tournament games. His chess activity in that year started with the international tournament in Nice, followed by the international tournament in Paris in May 1930. In July 1930 as a member of the French team, headed by its captain Alexander Alekhine, he attended his second chess olympiad, in Hamburg.
The readers thus have a unique chance of watching not only the chess career of this great artist of the 20th century, but they can get an insight into the details of chess life in Paris clubs and in France in general. This book includes all available games by M. Duchamp that it was possible to discover, either separately or with the assistance of our chess friends, in various sources of the period. Much of this has never been published before in any similar monograph devoted to M. Duchamp's chess career. In addition to M. Duchamp's games, this book includes known, less well known and completely unknown games of leading French players from the tournaments competed in by M. Duchamp. Sometimes other major events are included which most probably were watched by M. Duchamp as a spectator or as an F.F.E. delegate. For ordinary lovers of chess history, many of these games are virtually inaccessible, being hidden in chess magazines and chess columns of various French dailies.
The period 1926-1930 must have been decisive for M. Duchamp's chess career. In spite of his efforts he was unable to move from the rank of a strong French player to the rank of a strong international chess master. It is difficult to find all the reasons for his failures - some are hinted at in the following chapters. What is, however, absolutely evident is that some time in the early 1930s, M. Duchamp realized that he had reached the height of his powers and had no real chance of winning recognition in top-level chess. As Volume Three of this monograph will show, this sad truth never separated him completely from chess. Over the following years, the intensity of his participation in chess tournaments declined but he discovered correspondence chess and became a chess journalist.
Volume Two of his biography is based on detailed knowledge of literature and magazines, as in Volume One. In the second volume more attention is paid to French sources because, with a few exceptions, M. Duchamp spent most of his life in 1926-1930 in France. Apart from the chess olympiads at The Hague and in Hamburg, M. Duchamp did not attend any foreign tournament. Among the main French chess sources are of course La Strategic, the main French chess monthly, and the Bulletin de la F.F.E. To the study of these two basic sources were added all the major French chess columns and they really, to a large degree, filled in the gaps in the facts and produced many hitherto unknown games by M. Duchamp. In the first place there should be mentioned the chess columns in the dailies Excelsior, Poslednie Novosti, L'Action Francaise, LeTemps, and several more. From local chess columns those in L'Eclaireur du Soir (Nice), Salut Public (Lyon), and Journal de Rouen were found to be indispensable. A complete bibliography appears at the end of this monograph.
Looking back to the first volume, a fundamental question arises, in which respect the second volume is different from its predecessor. In content and conception, the process has remained identical, but unlike in Volume One, here more attention has been paid to the technical aspects of the book. Besides an improvement in the language of the text we have unified the spelling of all names, towns and chess clubs and have produced an index of names and subjects, which undoubtedly will be found quite useful. The late chess historian, Kenneth Whyld, who had followed the development of this project with great interest, had read the first volume of this monograph shortly before he died. Nearly every page in that first volume contains his notes, corrections and suggestions for expansion of the text. It was he who reproached us for insufficient revision of names of people and places, a great many misprints, mistakes due to lack of attention, and the absence of name and subject indexes. I believe that in reading this second volume he would have been much more satisfied, even though despite great editing care, some errors and misprints are bound to remain in the text, having escaped the attention both of the editor and his many friends, who were asked to read the manuscript in advance.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the friends who were willing to help. Great thanks are due to Professor Jaroslav Peprník, PhD, without whose translation this book would not have appeared. Secondly, I owe my thanks to Tony Gillam of Nottingham, who did the principal proofreading and at that phase called my attention to mistakes that had crept into the text. Tony Gillam helped both with the text of the monograph and with the search for some lesser known games by M. Duchamp and by the French players from the chess olympiads. He was always ready to give valuable advice and share information with me.
A great assistance was offered by one of the major French chess historians and collectors of chess literature, Dr. Jean Mennerat. Thanks to his extensive chess library it was possible to obtain some inaccessible tournament tables, a good deal of unknown data about M. Duchamp's chess activities, and the games of French players from the 1926-1930 period.
Here, in advance, I should mention the assistance of chess friends from the USA, whose interesting discoveries, however, refer to M. Duchamp's career during his stay in the USA after 1942, which is to be the subject of Volume Three of this biographical project.
Finally, allow me to say that the greatest thanks are due to Mr. Bessel Kok, without whose financial and moral support and his immense patience and understanding this project would never have been realised and brought
(hopefully) to a successful conclusion. This second volume is being published about two years after the first, and the third volume is planned for late 2005. The research, originally planned for two years, will thus extend over six years. The termination of this project has had to be postponed because of the need for extended research in foreign libraries, especially in France and the U.S.A., and is also due to the heavier load of academic duties of the author. Still, Mr. Bessel Kok repeatedly expressed his full understanding and personal interest in the successful completion of the whole research project. Once more, many thanks for his patience and understanding.
| EAN | 9788071895169 |
|---|---|
| Gewicht | 730 g |
| Hersteller | Caissa 90-Olomouc |
| Breite | 15 cm |
| Höhe | 21 cm |
| Medium | Buch |
| Erscheinungsjahr | 2004 |
| Autor | Vlastimil Fiala |
| Sprache | Englisch |
| ISBN-10 | 8071895164 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-8071895169 |
| Seiten | 451 |
| Einband | gebunden |
005 INTRODUCTION
010 I. MARCEL DUCHAMP IN 1926
010 I. 1. Chess Life in France, 1926
032 I. 2. Duchamp and Cercle Rouennais des Echecs
037 I. 3. Conclusion
038 II. MARCEL DUCHAMP IN 1927
038 II. 1. Chess Life in France, 1927
045 II. 2. M. Duchamp's Activities in 1927
049 II. 3. Summer Tournament at Nice, 1927
058 II. 4. Championship of France at Chamonix, 1927
084 II. 5. Championship of Paris, 1927
101 II. 6. Conclusion
102 III. MARCEL DUCHAMP IN 1928
102 III. 1. Chess Life in France, 1928
123 III. 2. M. Duchamp's Activities in 1928
131 III. 3. Chess Olympiad at The Hague, July-August 1928
169 III. 4. 6th Championship of France in Marseille, 1928
193 III. 5. Conclusion
194 IV. MARCEL DUCHAMP IN 1929
194 IV. 1. Chess Life in France, 1929
208 IV. 2. M. Duchamp's Activities in 1929
214 IV. 3. Paris Team Cup, February - March, 1929
232 IV. 4. International Master Tournament, Paris 1929
284 IV. 5. Conclusion
285 V. MARCEL DUCHAMP IN 1930
285 V. 1. Chess Life in France, 1930
304 V. 2. M. Duchamp's Activities in 1930
309 V. 3. International Tournament in Nice, 1930
362 V. 4. International Tournament in Paris, 1930
385 V. 5. Chess Olympiad at Hamburg, 1930
429 V. 6. Conclusion
430 VI. CONCLUSION
433 Duchamp's Chess Career Record (1926-1930)
434 Index of Players
437 Index of Openings
438 Name Index
445 General Index
449 Bibliography
010 I. MARCEL DUCHAMP IN 1926
010 I. 1. Chess Life in France, 1926
032 I. 2. Duchamp and Cercle Rouennais des Echecs
037 I. 3. Conclusion
038 II. MARCEL DUCHAMP IN 1927
038 II. 1. Chess Life in France, 1927
045 II. 2. M. Duchamp's Activities in 1927
049 II. 3. Summer Tournament at Nice, 1927
058 II. 4. Championship of France at Chamonix, 1927
084 II. 5. Championship of Paris, 1927
101 II. 6. Conclusion
102 III. MARCEL DUCHAMP IN 1928
102 III. 1. Chess Life in France, 1928
123 III. 2. M. Duchamp's Activities in 1928
131 III. 3. Chess Olympiad at The Hague, July-August 1928
169 III. 4. 6th Championship of France in Marseille, 1928
193 III. 5. Conclusion
194 IV. MARCEL DUCHAMP IN 1929
194 IV. 1. Chess Life in France, 1929
208 IV. 2. M. Duchamp's Activities in 1929
214 IV. 3. Paris Team Cup, February - March, 1929
232 IV. 4. International Master Tournament, Paris 1929
284 IV. 5. Conclusion
285 V. MARCEL DUCHAMP IN 1930
285 V. 1. Chess Life in France, 1930
304 V. 2. M. Duchamp's Activities in 1930
309 V. 3. International Tournament in Nice, 1930
362 V. 4. International Tournament in Paris, 1930
385 V. 5. Chess Olympiad at Hamburg, 1930
429 V. 6. Conclusion
430 VI. CONCLUSION
433 Duchamp's Chess Career Record (1926-1930)
434 Index of Players
437 Index of Openings
438 Name Index
445 General Index
449 Bibliography
This second volume of 'The chess biography of Marcel Duchamp' covers the years 1926 till the end of 1930, so it could be for the chess collector a slight disappointment if he was hoping to close with this book the chapter on Marcel Duchamp but I saw in this book that Fiala is preparing a finale third part on this great (chess) artist.
The years between 1926 and 1930 were very important for the development of chess for Marcel Duchamp who tried to improve his position among the French chess players.
In 1927 and 1928 he participated in the championships of France and in 1928 and 1930 he represented France at chess Olympiads at The Hague and Hamburg but he also played in four international chess tournaments!
The author and publisher Vlastimil Fiala does not only cover in this book the chess career of the great chess artist of the 20th century but also gives the reader an excellent insight into the chess life in Paris and France in general; Fiala has managed to dig up all available games from Duchamp and his contemporaries.
Someway this period was decisive for Duchamp’s chess career. In spite of his efforts he was unable to move from a strong French player to the rank of a strong international chess master. In this book you shall find some kind of answer for his failure but I personally believe that this great artist had too many interests.
Fiala writes that the Nice tournament did not find M.Duchamp in an optimal form, practically all participants defeated him but in 'The human comedy of chess A grandmaster’s chronicles' we can find an answer of his bad performance; In 1927, to the bewilder man of his friends, he married the daughter of a rich automobile man manufacturer. This great event did not separate him from the chess board, during his honey moon he went every day to the chess club!
But it gets even worse: after he returned from the club he studied chess positions for hours so it is understandable that this marriage did only hold a few months.
Ree mentions that Duchamp played the French championship in Lyon but that is a mistake; it was held in Chamonix and well in September 1927 and won by the French endgame expert Andre Cheron. Through this book I found around 35 games from Cheron who shared by the way the French championship of 1926 together with another great endgame specialist, Fred Lazard. Many French commentators noticed that Duchamp had problems with concentration against players who where on paper weaker. But against stronger players he often obtained surprising results as for example his draw against Frank Marshall, Hamburg Chess Olympiad of 1930.
Volume two of this biography is based on more detailed knowledge of literature and magazines as volume one but there is more attention to France sources and it has 125 more pages than volume One!
At last an interesting quote from Duchamp: 'I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialised. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.'
Conclusion:Well researched!
With kind permission of the author John Elburg (www.chessbooks.nl)
The years between 1926 and 1930 were very important for the development of chess for Marcel Duchamp who tried to improve his position among the French chess players.
In 1927 and 1928 he participated in the championships of France and in 1928 and 1930 he represented France at chess Olympiads at The Hague and Hamburg but he also played in four international chess tournaments!
The author and publisher Vlastimil Fiala does not only cover in this book the chess career of the great chess artist of the 20th century but also gives the reader an excellent insight into the chess life in Paris and France in general; Fiala has managed to dig up all available games from Duchamp and his contemporaries.
Someway this period was decisive for Duchamp’s chess career. In spite of his efforts he was unable to move from a strong French player to the rank of a strong international chess master. In this book you shall find some kind of answer for his failure but I personally believe that this great artist had too many interests.
Fiala writes that the Nice tournament did not find M.Duchamp in an optimal form, practically all participants defeated him but in 'The human comedy of chess A grandmaster’s chronicles' we can find an answer of his bad performance; In 1927, to the bewilder man of his friends, he married the daughter of a rich automobile man manufacturer. This great event did not separate him from the chess board, during his honey moon he went every day to the chess club!
But it gets even worse: after he returned from the club he studied chess positions for hours so it is understandable that this marriage did only hold a few months.
Ree mentions that Duchamp played the French championship in Lyon but that is a mistake; it was held in Chamonix and well in September 1927 and won by the French endgame expert Andre Cheron. Through this book I found around 35 games from Cheron who shared by the way the French championship of 1926 together with another great endgame specialist, Fred Lazard. Many French commentators noticed that Duchamp had problems with concentration against players who where on paper weaker. But against stronger players he often obtained surprising results as for example his draw against Frank Marshall, Hamburg Chess Olympiad of 1930.
Volume two of this biography is based on more detailed knowledge of literature and magazines as volume one but there is more attention to France sources and it has 125 more pages than volume One!
At last an interesting quote from Duchamp: 'I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialised. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.'
Conclusion:Well researched!
With kind permission of the author John Elburg (www.chessbooks.nl)
This second volume of 'The chess biography of Marcel Duchamp' covers the years 1926 till the end of 1930, so it could be for the chess collector a slight disappointment if he was hoping to close with this book the chapter on Marcel Duchamp but I saw in this book that Fiala is preparing a finale third part on this great (chess) artist.
The years between 1926 and 1930 were very important for the development of chess for Marcel Duchamp who tried to improve his position among the French chess players.
In 1927 and 1928 he participated in the championships of France and in 1928 and 1930 he represented France at chess Olympiads at The Hague and Hamburg but he also played in four international chess tournaments!
The author and publisher Vlastimil Fiala does not only cover in this book the chess career of the great chess artist of the 20th century but also gives the reader an excellent insight into the chess life in Paris and France in general; Fiala has managed to dig up all available games from Duchamp and his contemporaries.
Someway this period was decisive for Duchamp’s chess career. In spite of his efforts he was unable to move from a strong French player to the rank of a strong international chess master. In this book you shall find some kind of answer for his failure but I personally believe that this great artist had too many interests.
Fiala writes that the Nice tournament did not find M.Duchamp in an optimal form, practically all participants defeated him but in 'The human comedy of chess A grandmaster’s chronicles' we can find an answer of his bad performance; In 1927, to the bewilder man of his friends, he married the daughter of a rich automobile man manufacturer. This great event did not separate him from the chess board, during his honey moon he went every day to the chess club!
But it gets even worse: after he returned from the club he studied chess positions for hours so it is understandable that this marriage did only hold a few months.
Ree mentions that Duchamp played the French championship in Lyon but that is a mistake; it was held in Chamonix and well in September 1927 and won by the French endgame expert Andre Cheron. Through this book I found around 35 games from Cheron who shared by the way the French championship of 1926 together with another great endgame specialist, Fred Lazard. Many French commentators noticed that Duchamp had problems with concentration against players who where on paper weaker. But against stronger players he often obtained surprising results as for example his draw against Frank Marshall, Hamburg Chess Olympiad of 1930.
Volume two of this biography is based on more detailed knowledge of literature and magazines as volume one but there is more attention to France sources and it has 125 more pages than volume One!
At last an interesting quote from Duchamp: 'I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialised. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.'
Conclusion:Well researched!
With kind permission of the author John Elburg (www.chessbooks.nl)
The years between 1926 and 1930 were very important for the development of chess for Marcel Duchamp who tried to improve his position among the French chess players.
In 1927 and 1928 he participated in the championships of France and in 1928 and 1930 he represented France at chess Olympiads at The Hague and Hamburg but he also played in four international chess tournaments!
The author and publisher Vlastimil Fiala does not only cover in this book the chess career of the great chess artist of the 20th century but also gives the reader an excellent insight into the chess life in Paris and France in general; Fiala has managed to dig up all available games from Duchamp and his contemporaries.
Someway this period was decisive for Duchamp’s chess career. In spite of his efforts he was unable to move from a strong French player to the rank of a strong international chess master. In this book you shall find some kind of answer for his failure but I personally believe that this great artist had too many interests.
Fiala writes that the Nice tournament did not find M.Duchamp in an optimal form, practically all participants defeated him but in 'The human comedy of chess A grandmaster’s chronicles' we can find an answer of his bad performance; In 1927, to the bewilder man of his friends, he married the daughter of a rich automobile man manufacturer. This great event did not separate him from the chess board, during his honey moon he went every day to the chess club!
But it gets even worse: after he returned from the club he studied chess positions for hours so it is understandable that this marriage did only hold a few months.
Ree mentions that Duchamp played the French championship in Lyon but that is a mistake; it was held in Chamonix and well in September 1927 and won by the French endgame expert Andre Cheron. Through this book I found around 35 games from Cheron who shared by the way the French championship of 1926 together with another great endgame specialist, Fred Lazard. Many French commentators noticed that Duchamp had problems with concentration against players who where on paper weaker. But against stronger players he often obtained surprising results as for example his draw against Frank Marshall, Hamburg Chess Olympiad of 1930.
Volume two of this biography is based on more detailed knowledge of literature and magazines as volume one but there is more attention to France sources and it has 125 more pages than volume One!
At last an interesting quote from Duchamp: 'I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialised. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.'
Conclusion:Well researched!
With kind permission of the author John Elburg (www.chessbooks.nl)
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