joseph cornell, shadow boxes, art, assemblage

1. Joseph Cornell

2. “ Imagine making beautiful and important art without drawing or painting or sculpting in any of the obvious classical ways. Miraculously, and even magically, the self-taught American artist, Joseph Cornell, achieved this with his intimate box constructions and collages.” Source: http://www.sackville.ednet.ns.ca/art/gallery/exhibit/pop/cornell.html Cornell was, in fact, almost compulsively focused on children, to the point of presenting, in 1972, what was probably the first avant-garde art exhibition in New York for children only. At the Cooper Union gallery, Cornell displayed 26 boxes and collages at child’s-eye level, no more than three feet off the ground, and at the opening reception, children dined not on champagne and caviar but on cherry soda and brownies.

3. "Cornell spent most of his life in a frame house on Utopia Parkway in Queens, New York, with his mother and his crippled brother, Robert. From there this reclusive, gray, long-beaked man would sally forth on small voyages of discovery, scavenging for relics of the past in New York junk shops and flea markets. To others, these deposits might be refuse, but to Cornell they were the strata of repressed memory, a jumble of elements waiting to be grafted and mated to one another.” Source: http://www.sackville.ednet.ns.ca/art/gallery/exhibit/pop/cornell.html Cornell was, in fact, almost compulsively focused on children, to the point of presenting, in 1972, what was probably the first avant-garde art exhibition in New York for children only. At the Cooper Union gallery, Cornell displayed 26 boxes and collages at child’s-eye level, no more than three feet off the ground, and at the opening reception, children dined not on champagne and caviar but on cherry soda and brownies.

4. Joseph Cornell. Untitled (The Hotel Eden) , c. 1945; Construction, 15 1/8 x 15 3/4 x 4 3/4;

5. Joseph Cornell. The Admiral’s Game

6. Joseph Cornell. Object (Abeilles)

8. Joseph Cornell. L'egypte

9. Joseph Cornell. Medici Princess

10. Joseph Cornell. Medici Prince

11. Joseph Cornell. Cassiopeia #1

12. Joseph Cornell. Cassiopeia #1 Cassiopeia #1 Cassiopeia #1

13. Joseph Cornell. Cassiopeia #1 Cassiopeia #1

14. Joseph Cornell. Object (Roses des Vents) Cassiopeia #1 Cassiopeia #1 Cassiopeia #1

15. Joseph Cornell. Cassiopeia #1 Cassiopeia #1 Cassiopeia #1

16. Joseph Cornell. Untitled (Paul and Virginia) Cassiopeia #1 Cassiopeia #1 Cassiopeia #1