Joseph cornell biography

Joseph Cornell & His Own Brand of American Surrealism

Though now considered one of the few American proponents of Surrealism, Joseph Cornell was apprehensive about the affiliation, once admitting to Alfred H. Barr that, “I do not share in the subconscious and dream theories of the surrealists. While fervently admiring much of their work, I have never been an official surrealist&#;” and in a letter to the poet Charles Henri Ford, “I never liked the kind of black magic that Dali, Breton, etc. go in for—it&#;s always seemed cheap to me.” Instead of finding commonalities, Cornell readily identified Salvador Dalí, André Breton, and Max Ernst with profanity, eroticism, extreme subversion, and iconoclasm. His apparent personal aversion notwithstanding, Cornell’s art should not be so readily branded “Surrealist”. Cornell’s vein of avant-gardewas forged from childlike innocence and as a secretive refuge from adulthood (stories by Hans Christian Anderson and Antoine de Saint-Exupery&#;s The Little Prince were often referenced in Cornell’s works). Rather than striving for alchemy or access into other worlds like the firebrand Surrealists, Kynaston L. McShine, writing for the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition The Art of Assemblage, described Cornell’s oeuvre as: &#;&#;natural and filled with love&#; Lost illusions are sheltered along with pristine innocence and the pure naïveté of childhood&#; His art is enduring as it is ephemeral&#; as wise and series as it is witty and ironic.&#;

Rather than relying on the subconscious or chance encounters, as in the case of the Surrealists’ “exquisite corpse” exercises, Cornell was deliberate in his expression and selection of assemblage materials. Cornell’s art did not seek perversion and transformation as Ern

Summary of Joseph Cornell

Using the Surrealist technique of unexpected juxtaposition, Joseph Cornell's best-known works are glass-fronted boxes into which he placed and arranged Victorian bric-a-brac, old photographs, dime-store trinkets, and other found elements. Generally referred to as "shadow boxes," the resulting pieces are dream-like miniature tableaux that inspire the viewer to see each component in a new light. Cornell often used the shadow boxes to address recurrent themes of interest such as childhood, space, and birds, and they represented an escape of sorts for their creator, who was famously reclusive. Among the earliest examples of assemblage, the shadow boxes also helped give rise to a host of other Modern and Contemporary American art forms, from Installation art to Fluxus boxes.

Accomplishments

• Cornell's signature art form is the shadow box. Infused with a dream-like aura, the shadow boxes invite the viewer into Cornell's own private, magical world. Alternately known as "memory boxes" or "poetic theaters," the boxes evoke the memories associated with the items contained within, while also containing parallels with, or expressing reverence for, other art forms, such as theater, ballet, and film.
• Inspired by Marcel Duchamp'sreadymades, Cornell elevated the found object to the center of his oeuvre and embodied a new paradigm of the artist as collector and archivist. Often purchased on Cornell's frequent visits to New York secondhand shops or cut out from magazines, these objects comprise the primary materials of his art; they not only inhabit Cornell's shadow boxes, they are also key to other aspects of his artistic practice, such as his famous "dossiers," which were organized repositories of visual-documentary source material collected by the artist.
• Although he was never officially part of the Surrealist movement and came to dismiss the Surrealist label in relation to his own work, Surrealism was a major influence on Cornell, most notabl

American artist and filmmaker (–)

This article is about the artist and sculptor. For the nature educator, see Joseph Bharat Cornell.

Joseph Cornell (December 24, – December 29, ) was an American visual artist and filmmaker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmmaker. He was largely self-taught in his artistic efforts, and improvised his own original style incorporating cast-off and discarded artifacts. He lived most of his life in relative physical isolation, caring for his mother and his disabled brother at home, but remained aware of and in contact with other contemporary artists.

Life

Joseph Cornell was born in Nyack, New York, to Joseph Cornell, a textiles industry executive, and Helen Ten Broeck Storms Cornell, who had trained as a nursery teacher. Both parents came from socially prominent families of Dutch ancestry, long-established in New York State. Cornell's father died April 30, , leaving the family in straitened circumstances. Following the elder Cornell's death, his widow and children moved to the borough of Queens in New York City. Cornell attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in the class of Although he reached the senior year, he did not graduate. Following this, he returned to live with his family.

Except for the three-and-a-half years he spent at Phillips, he lived for most of his life in a small, wood-frame house on Utopia Parkway in a working-class area of Flushing, along with his mother and his brother Robert, whom cerebral palsy had rendered physically disabled. Aside from his time at Andover, Cornell never traveled beyond the New York City area.

Art practice

Sculpture and collage

Cornell's most characteristic art works were boxed a