I found these photographs in a dusty old pamphlet published by the BCM containing the moves of the great AVRO 1938 chess tournament, and frankly, I also found them to be rather splendid. I published one previously here, asking readers to guess what kind of player was pictured, but I felt interest was not particularly high in answering that question - so I thought that instead I'd post the whole lot here and now. Enjoy, and as ever you can click each photograph to see an enlarged version.
2 comments:
I suppose one particularly interesting thing is seeing so many of them young. Alekhine and Capablanca, we're most familar with seeing in that same era: but there's a tendency to think of Botvinnik and Reshevsky and Euwe, for instance, always as older men.
"I suppose one particularly interesting thing is seeing so many of them young."
Though what's surprising is that ( if these pics were taken in 1938 ) is how old they look for their age. In 1938 they were
Keres 22
Fine 24
Botvinnik 27
Reshevsky 27
Capa 50
Euwe 37
Aljechin 46
Flohr 30.
Some of them look, or are made to look, much older (more mature?) than their years, at least to my eye. Maybe it's about fashion in portrait styles.
Martin S.
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