Grandmaster of Avant-Garde

Galina Satonina (1905-2000) was the leading chess painter of the Soviet era. A multiple-time Kazan and Tatarstan ladies chess champion, she saw life as a game of chess, and her paintings speak the language of Caissa. She painted world champions and other famous players, ranging from early stars Philidor, Morphy and Anderssen, all the way through to Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov. Several of her paintings depict the chess pieces themselves and emotions felt during play, as well as different aspects of the game such as time-trouble and checkmate.

Satonina's works were exhibited at Soviet-era world championship matches. They were widely written about in the Soviet and international chess press, including Shakhmaty v SSSR, 64 and Ceskoslovensky Sach.

This full-color coffee-table book, based on original paintings from museum and private collections, was compiled by Dr. Vladimir Kudryavtsev, who has published many tomes on national and regional visual art of the Soviet and pre-Soviet periods. It additionally contains other works from Satonina's career as well as her unique life story.