Bob Rosenwald is
the only 70-year-old I know who tools around New Hope
on a Honda motor scooter. With his penchant for
naming everything, he calls his scooter The Rinky
Dink. Two other means of transport for Bob are his
ear with a license plate that reads 2-de-lao and his
rowboat, The Hunky Dory. Distinctive would be a word
to portray Bob, whose two obsessions, sculpture and
chess, have informed his quirky and pun-filled life
along the Delaware River. But how he beat Bobbie
Fisher at chess is one of Rosenwald's best stories:
"I was walking the beach at Martha's Vineyard
some years ago and l saw two kids playing chess. One
of the kids asked me to join him, but he said he was
going to change the rules. 'If you win, I win,' he
said, 'and if I win, you win.' I answered, 'Sure, why
not'?' I was successfully losing the game, when,
toward the end, I was left with a king and a
pawn...and that kid managed to force me to win! So I
beat him, but l lost. The kid turned out to be
14-year-old Bobbie Fisher, who was at that time the
U.S. junior champion in chess. "My father,
Lessing Rosenwald, taught me to play when I was four
or five years old, and I've been playing and
inventing chess boards ever since. My father knew a
lot of people in chess. At one point, he donated
$2000 to the winner of the U.S. Open, which became
known as the Lessing Rosenwald Championship. At 14,
the age when I met him, Bobbie Fisher played Donald
Bern in the U.S. Open Championship. Sacrificing his
queen, Fisher @ron the game, and it became known as
the game of the century." it's no surprise,
then, that chess has made its way into Bob
Rosenwald's sculpture. His three one-man shows of
nothing but chess sets and chess boards led to a
current commercial creation named "Hickory
Dickory, the Ulti-Mate Compact Chess Set," an
ingenious foldaway set in paper and cardboard,
planned with computer-assisted design. He named one
of the horses in the set Sylvester Stallion, and
Bob's self-coined "pen name in chess" is
Bjorn Toulouse. in his art, from 1945-81, Rosenwaid
worked in wood, stone and some bronzes, and from 1981
to the present has created nothing but his large and
characteristically clean kinetic sculptures-those
that move. His work, he says, is informed by life
along the l3elaware, and the constant movement of the
water outside his windows. (Once the water got in,
and he'il never forget it. Showing me the high water
mark in his studio at seven feet, he said, "I
lost everything.") Rosenwald's three huge
kinetic sculptures of welded aluminum are landmarks
in Bucks County, especially the one installed through
a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant as the
result of winning a New Hope Arts Commission
competition. As it moves in the river's wind, Sign of
the Times seems to wave goodbye to the many tourists
who have visited the area as f.hey wend their way
back to New Jersey across the narrow New
Hope-Lambertville free bridge. Rosenwald's sculpture
almost seems to be waving a friendly,
"2-de-loo."
Bob Rosenwald is
the only 70-year-old I know who tools around New Hope
on a Honda motor scooter. With his penchant for
naming everything, he calls his scooter The Rinky
Dink. Two other means of transport for Bob are his
ear with a license plate that reads 2-de-lao and his
rowboat, The Hunky Dory. Distinctive would be a word
to portray Bob, whose two obsessions, sculpture and
chess, have informed his quirky and pun-filled life
along the Delaware River. But how he beat Bobbie
Fisher at chess is one of Rosenwald's best stories:
"I was walking the beach at Martha's Vineyard
some years ago and l saw two kids playing chess. One
of the kids asked me to join him, but he said he was
going to change the rules. 'If you win, I win,' he
said, 'and if I win, you win.' I answered, 'Sure, why
not'?' I was successfully losing the game, when,
toward the end, I was left with a king and a
pawn...and that kid managed to force me to win! So I
beat him, but l lost. The kid turned out to be
14-year-old Bobbie Fisher, who was at that time the
U.S. junior champion in chess. "My father,
Lessing Rosenwald, taught me to play when I was four
or five years old, and I've been playing and
inventing chess boards ever since. My father knew a
lot of people in chess. At one point, he donated
$2000 to the winner of the U.S. Open, which became
known as the Lessing Rosenwald Championship. At 14,
the age when I met him, Bobbie Fisher played Donald
Bern in the U.S. Open Championship. Sacrificing his
queen, Fisher @ron the game, and it became known as
the game of the century." it's no surprise,
then, that chess has made its way into Bob
Rosenwald's sculpture. His three one-man shows of
nothing but chess sets and chess boards led to a
current commercial creation named "Hickory
Dickory, the Ulti-Mate Compact Chess Set," an
ingenious foldaway set in paper and cardboard,
planned with computer-assisted design. He named one
of the horses in the set Sylvester Stallion, and
Bob's self-coined "pen name in chess" is
Bjorn Toulouse. in his art, from 1945-81, Rosenwaid
worked in wood, stone and some bronzes, and from 1981
to the present has created nothing but his large and
characteristically clean kinetic sculptures-those
that move. His work, he says, is informed by life
along the l3elaware, and the constant movement of the
water outside his windows. (Once the water got in,
and he'il never forget it. Showing me the high water
mark in his studio at seven feet, he said, "I
lost everything.") Rosenwald's three huge
kinetic sculptures of welded aluminum are landmarks
in Bucks County, especially the one installed through
a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant as the
result of winning a New Hope Arts Commission
competition. As it moves in the river's wind, Sign of
the Times seems to wave goodbye to the many tourists
who have visited the area as f.hey wend their way
back to New Jersey across the narrow New
Hope-Lambertville free bridge. Rosenwald's sculpture
almost seems to be waving a friendly,
"2-de-loo."