Throughout his life, Marcel Duchamp was an enthusiastic and skilled chess player, even declaring at one point that he had given up art in order to play chess.  In 1924, he was declared Chess Master by the French Chess Federation.  However, instead of giving up art for chess, he used chess to inform and inspire his art.  The  exhibit "Marcel Duchamp: Chess Master", which opens at the St. Louis University Museum on May 6, is the first exhibit to focus entirely on Duchamp’s interest in chess.  In addition to works by Duchamp himself, the exhibit includes chess-inspired works by other Dada and Surrealist artists such as Man Ray and  Max Ernst.  The exhibition will be preceded by panel discussion of Duchamp’s chess-playing on May 5 at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis.