The Making of The Cotham Chess Set
by Tony Pizzey’s son, Jason
Between the years of 1964/65 Tony Pizzey aged 21/22 was training as a student teacher in Bristol on the Art Teacher Training course at Tower House in Cotham. He had the talent and ability to go to the Royal College to study sculpture but instead chose to go into teaching.
He was married and had started a family but still found time for multiple creative projects. He knew and loved the Lewis chess set in the British Museum and as an art student, he had seen the film ‘The Seventh Seal’ which begins with the figure of Death playing chess with a knight on a Danish beach. He was inspired and set out to design his own 32-piece ‘high-end’ porcelain chess set. He wanted a side income to support his teacher’s salary and was at the top of his game creatively.
Every piece had to be made in terracotta clay. His friend Leighton Clark who helped him with the project recalls that advice on making two-piece moulds was received from a dental technician. Due to the shrinkage inherent in the process they had to be made larger than needed and then plaster moulds were made for each piece. Experiments with firing were carried out, using slip clay; some white, and some black. However excessive shrinkage of the black pieces caused a halt in the firing and the project was shelved before a complete set was made. Some unique pieces and experiments sat on our mantelpiece for years and as children, we were fascinated by them, but the moulds had been packed away in storage, forgotten and covered with dust.
Fifty years later Tony was diagnosed with a brain tumour and time was short. He wanted to complete the project along with many others. He had always told us that the project was no good and we thought that there must be pieces missing. In reality, there were no pieces missing and with help from family members including his grandson Harry and a local potter, Paul Stubbs, we used the original moulds to make five chess sets in stoneware, each glazed in different colours. There were details that he was unhappy with and he told us at length what they were, but to us, the sets were beautiful.
Tony saw the chess set for the first time at Christmas in 2016 and he passed away in March 2017. He worked as an Art Teacher in and around Bristol for some 40 years. He was a very accomplished teacher and had a wicked sense of humour that made him very popular. My wife and I really loved the chess set and I quickly realised that if the original moulds were used anymore the plaster would become saturated and break, and the designs would be lost forever. I decided to approach a 3D digital printing company in London called Additive to see if the moulds could be scanned and preserved for the future.
The company was excited by such a unique project and we were amazed at what they could do. With their encouragement we had new master copies of each piece printed in resin, from which new plaster moulds could be made. The missing details were added on the computer. Using the new moulds, and a lot of support from independent creators and family members, we have made 10 new chess sets in porcelain as originally intended. To complete The Cotham Chess Set, we have developed a chess board and box in keeping with Tony’s love of pyrography.
So the story has a beginning middle and a satisfying ending. In the film ‘The Seventh Seal’ the knight knows he is going to lose his game of chess with Death but he is able to distract him just a little, while others escape his attention.
“He saw it as important that the Queen should look pregnant – the personification of quiet power for the most powerful piece.”
Ken Williams (fellow teacher at Hartcliff school)
