Original Halldor Petursson Watercolor Caricature of Bobby Fischer, Boris Spassky and William Lombardy.

“Chess is life”: Original Halldor Petursson Watercolor Caricature of Bobby Fischer, Boris Spassky and William Lombardy; Signed by Halldor Petursson and William Lombardy

Original Halldor Petursson Watercolor Caricature of Bobby Fischer, Boris Spassky and William Lombardy.

PETURSSON, Halldor [Bobby Fischer.

Item Number: 82344

Original watercolor painting by Icelandic cartoonist Halldor Petursson depicting the outcome of the 1972 World Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland. The piece features caricatures of American chess champion Bobby Fischer, challenger and Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky, and Fischer’s coach throughout the series, grandmaster William Lombardy. Inscribed by the artist in the month of the first match to William Lombardy, “Grandmaster William Lombardy, Reykjavík, July 1972.” Additionally signed twice by Lombardy. Halldor Petursson created some of the most iconic images of the historic 1972 World Chess Championship with a series of 18 post cards featuring caricatures of the historic chess grandmasters. In Game 3 of the series, Fischer beat Spassky for the first time and went undefeated for the next six matches. Double matted and framed.  The entire piece measures 20 inches by 24.5 inches. From the library of William Lombardy. An exceptional piece of chess history with noted provenance.

 

The World Chess Championship 1972 between defending champion Boris Spassky and challenger Bobby Fischer has been dubbed the Match of the Century. Considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all time, Fischer defeated Spassky in Game 3 of the series, becoming the eleventh undisputed World Champion and ending 24 years of Soviet domination of the World Championship. Former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov said of the global significance of the match:"The reason you look at these matches probably was not so much the chess factor but to the political element, which was inevitable because in the Soviet Union, chess was treated by the Soviet authorities as a very important and useful ideological tool to demonstrate the intellectual superiority of the Soviet communist regime over the decadent West. That’s why the Spassky defeat was treated by people on both sides of the Atlantic as a crushing moment in the midst of the Cold War."

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