Alice Kent Stoddard, The Chess Game

Kent Stoddard’s Chess Game depicts two men concentrating intently on their game. Leaning towards each other, both men are engaged, watching and attempting to predict each other’s next move. 

Stoddard was familiar with the collection of the Barnes Foundation. She surely knew Paul Cezanne’s famous painting,  The Card Players , where the figures are similarly immersed in the contemplation of their game. Stoddard spent summers on Monhegan island, and her figures are bathed in the warm intensity of the summer sun. Stoddard had purchased a house on the island from her cousin, the painter Rockwell Kent. Throughout the 20th century, the dramatic landscape of Mohegan attracted artist-vacationers, not only the cousins Kent and Stoddard, but also Edward Hopper, George Bellows and Andrew Wyeth.