Tear Drop Woman (Ellison Wonderland Chess Table)

This is a very rare piece by artist Barclay Shaw with a really unique story. It’s a wall sculpture in cast bronze created as a center piece for a wall-mounted chess table commissioned by sci-fi author Harlan Ellison in 1994 and 4 castings were made: Harlan got #1/10, this is 2/10, one of the artist's relatives purchased 3/10, and Shaw kept the one unnumbered as AP. So while 10 were envisioned, only four will likely ever exist, Barclay says. Included below are a couple images of the final chess table with the piece included in the final design. Originally in the Frank Collection.

The full chess table won the Chesley Award in 1996 for Best Three-Dimensional Work. The chess table was featured and published in “The Chesley Awards: A Retrospective”, published by AAPPL in 2003.

Solid cast bronze
22" h x 11" w x 3" deep, signed and dated 1994, ed #2/10.