‘From my close contacts with artists and chess players, I have come to the conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.’

For Marcel Duchamp, chess was almost everything. As his friend, the author Henri-Pierre Roché, noted: “He needed a good chess game like a baby needs his bottle.” He loved its conceptual nature and its utter purposelessness, aspects that he generously shared with friends and lovers alike.