Tracey Emin’s “Travelling Chess Set”

Tracey Emin’s “Travelling Chess Set” (2008) was acquired for £25,000.

LONDON.- The Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester has acquired an original new work by British artist Tracey Emin with help from The Art Fund, the UK’s leading independent art charity.

Tracey Emin’s Travelling Chess Set (2008) was acquired for £25,000, of which The Art Fund contributed £9,375. The work was placed on public display in the gallery on 15 January, presented in its own antique-style ‘museum’ vitrine.

The piece comprises bronze chess pieces resting on a ‘board’ made from pieced-together cloth squares, some with printed or inked images and text. In this work the artist uses the historic game of chess as a metaphor for the heated intimacies of courtship, with the patchwork ‘board’ resembling a miniature blanket. A lover’s message on the ribbon-tied pouch made for storing the chess pieces reinforces the connection.

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