Chess set c. 1923

This chess set was created by Josef Hartwig out of wood, sometime between 1923 and 1924. Hartwig was an artist affiliated with the Bauhaus, an immensely influential German art school, which sought to bring art, craft, and technology together. Like many artists at the Bauhaus, Hartwig was committed to the idea of simple geometric forms and their potential for unifying design across artistic media. Look at the stark, minimalist aesthetic of this chess set. Hartwig has reduced each piece to its most essential geometric form; the movement of each piece is dictated by its shape. The Bauhaus was a progressive institution, but its egalitarian ideals were always in tension with the social and economic realities of interwar Germany. Art history can help us understand how art embodies and sometimes challenges the values of its own time and place. By researching the archives of the Bauhaus, we can gain a better understanding of the context in which Hartwig made his chess set.