Keith Haring Chess Set

MoMA Exclusive: Enjoy a more playful game of chess with pieces adapted from some of Haring’s most beloved works. A cheerful set shaped after sketches that will be instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with the artist, the Keith Haring Chess Set features pawns made of Haring’s barking dogs and castles shaped like men with their arms in the air. Crafted of turned and lacquered wood by the venerated toy firm Vilac, the Keith Haring Chess Set includes a white fabric bag to hold the pieces when not in use that features the artist’s 1989 self-portrait. The Keith Haring Chess Set board measures 12.6” square and pieces range from 0.5” (pawn) to 2.5” (king) tall. Haring has work in MoMA’s collection. Ages 6+.

One of the key figures in New York's East Village art scene in the 1970s and 1980s, Keith Haring developed a unique and distinctly personal vocabulary of bold, graphic icons—barking dogs, flying saucers, winged figures, and a crawling "radiant baby"—which he combined with abstract marks and patterns in densely packed compositions. An artist in the Museum’s collection, Haring’s work has been included in a number of MoMA exhibitions, starting in 1981 in MoMA PS1’s New York/New Wave exhibition and more recently in Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000 in 2012.