I was editing an obituary for Dorothea Tanning, a Surrealist painter who died Tuesday. It had an interesting passage about how she go together with her future husband, Max Ernst:
Back inNew York she finally met Ernst, at a party in 1942. Shortly thereafter he dropped by her studio seeking candidates for an exhibition of art by women of the Surrealist movement that he was organizing for Peggy Guggenheim’s new gallery, ‘‘Art of This Century.’’ Ms. Tanning’s not-quite-finished self-portrait with bare breasts, ‘‘Birthday,’’ happened to be on her easel. Ernst stayed for a game of chess, and within a week he had moved into her apartment.
Is “game of chess” a 1940s euphemism I am not familiar with?
Maybe “Ernst stayed to examine her chest set” would have made it less of a non sequitur.