1930s Oil on Canvas Portrait Painting “The Chess Player” | WPA

Here we have one of the most arresting paintings to pass through my hands in a good long while. He’s a brooding, beautifully executed oil portrait of a man locked in concentration over a chess board, signed L.S. Dimock and dated ’39. As in 1939. As in the year the world held its breath. The subject is awesome: a lean, weathered man with a small goatee and deeply furrowed brow (Vincent Price anyone?), eyes cast downward in total absorption. He’s leaning over the board mid-game, one hand hovering over a cluster of pieces like he’s calculating something the rest of us couldn’t follow with a map. His dark brown jacket is painted with loose, confident brushwork while the cooler grays and blues of the background give him this wonderful sense of isolation, of a man alone with his own mind. The chess pieces themselves are rendered with surprising specificity: knights, pawns, what looks like a king…an actual mid-game position captured in paint. The composition has real psychological weight. Whoever L.S. Dimock was, they knew how to paint a face. The subject’s expression sits somewhere between intensity and resignation. He’s already played out all the possible futures in his head and isn’t sure he likes any of them. Very 1939 energy. The WPA era painting comes out of an old estate in Milwaukee. The artist is unknown. We have a mystery artist! The canvas is unframed and shows the honest wear you’d expect from 85+ years of existence. The painting has some minor surface scuffing and paint loss along the edges, a few small spots, but the painted surface itself is vibrant and intact. A pro framer would have a field day with this one. It’s just under 24” x 20”, making it a very livable size for most walls. This is the kind of painting that stops people in a room. Chess players will love it. Lovers of WPA-era American art will love it. Vincent Price fans will love t. Anyone who appreciates a painting that actually says something will love it. Your move.