Untitled (Sun Box)
<p>Although spare in appearance, this box brings together several familiar themes in Cornell‘s work: birds (associated with the ring), travel, cosmology, and popular imagery. The startling, grotesquely grinning paper sun suggests children’s entertainment, perhaps even a cardboard theater. The contrast between this yellow sun and the white cork balls, which by association become moons, is echoed in the white and yellow dots of paint, meticulously formed into circles, for all their apparently random splattering. The formal and the metaphorical are beautifully balanced here, as so often in Cornell’s work.</p> <p>— Entry, Dawn Ades, <em>Surrealist Art: The Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago</em>, 1997, p. 82-83.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1950
- Dimensions
- 16.2 × 24.8 × 10.5 cm (6 3/8 × 9 3/4 × 4 1/8 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Joseph Cornell
Artist
Printmaking
A leading 20th century American artist and a pioneer of assemblage art, Joseph Cornell has become most well known for his “shadow boxes,” a series of works made from found objects and raw materials that are constructed in such a way as to illustrate narrative surreal, even fantastical scenes. His many variable interests, which ranged from Surrealism to opera to Romantic literature, deeply influenced his work, leading to allegorical and personal memory themed objects. Surrealism specifically was significant to his artistic style, with the method of juxtaposing objects and subjects in surprising combinations featuring heavily across his oeuvre.
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More by Joseph Cornell
Untitled (Derby Hat) from Prints for Phoenix House
1972 · Photogravure from a portfolio of three lithographs, two photogravures, two screenprints with stencil and varnish additions, one aquatint, one etching and aquatint, and one screenprint
Untitled (How to Make a Rainbow) from Prints for Phoenix House
1972 · Screenprint with stencil and varnish additions from a portfolio of three lithographs, two photogravures, two screenprints with stencil and varnish additions, one aquatint, one etching and aquatint, and one screenprint
Untitled (Landscape with Figure) from Prints for Phoenix House
1972 · Photogravure from a portfolio of three lithographs, two photogravures, two screenprints with stencil and varnish additions, one aquatint, one etching and aquatint, and one screenprint
Untitled (Hotel du Nord) from Prints for Phoenix House
1972 · Screenprint with stencil and varnish additions from a portfolio of three lithographs, two photogravures, two screenprints with stencil and varnish additions, one aquatint, one etching and aquatint, and one screenprint
Untitled (Satie and Ravel)
1968 · Collage composed of cut and pasted, commercially printed papers, with graphite, on cardboard
Now, Voyager
1966 · Collage composed of cut and pasted, commercially printed papers, with brush and black ink and touches of yellow gouache on untempered masonite
Record
Verified by Watts Index- Artist
- Joseph Cornell
- Year
- 1950
- Dimensions
- 16.2 × 24.8 × 10.5 cm (6 3/8 × 9 3/4 × 4 1/8 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1950-031366
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified