Movement, Style, School or Type of Art:
Assemblage, influenced by the lighter side of Surrealism.
Date and Place of Birth:
December 24, 1903, Nyack, New York
Life:
Joseph Cornell was a rather solitary figure in both the Art World and the world-at-large. He lived his entire life in the same house in Queens, surviving his mother / housemate by mere months. Wonderfully untrained, his trinket-filled, nostalgic, whimsical boxes were a never-before-seen medium (which lacked the descriptive name "assemblages" until a MoMA show in 1961). Rightfully best known for his constructions, Cornell also wrote poetry and created quite a number of short, experimental films.
Important Works:
- Medici Slot Machine (part of the "Medici" series), 1942
- Untitled (The Hotel Eden) (part of the "Hotel" series), 1945
- Untitled (Penny Arcade Portrait of Lauren Bacall) (part of the "Penny Arcade" series), 1945-46
- Untitled (Aviary with Parrot and Drawers) (part of the "Aviary" series), 1949
See pictures of Joseph Cornell's work in the Special Exhibition Gallery Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination.
Date and Place of Death:
December 29, 1972, Flushing, New York
Sources and Further Reading
- Baverstock, Alison. Secrets in a Box (Adventures in Art).
New York : Prestel, 2003.
- Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe; Vine, Richard; Lehrman, Robert; Cornell, Joseph; Hopps, Walter.
Joseph Cornell: Shadowplay ... Eterniday.
New York : Thames and Hudson, 2003.
- Joseph Cornell Papers (digitized collection online)
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
- Prestel Postcard Books. Joseph Cornell: Postcards.
New York : Prestel, 2000.
- Schaffner, Ingrid. The Essential Joseph Cornell.
New York : Harry N. Abrams, 2003.
- Waldman, Diane. Joseph Cornell: Master of Dreams.
New York : Harry N. Abrams, 2002.
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