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Joseph Cornell: Master of Dreams
"Out of the fantasies that enriched a private, often reclusive life, Joseph Cornell created a "poetic theater of memory." His box constructions and collages feature such characters as a Medici princess, birds, ballerinas, and movie stars. Using the seemingly commonplace materials that he collected in five-and-dime stores and other shops in New York City - cordial glasses, mirrors, marbles, and maps among them - along with clippings from books and magazines, childhood games, and Victorian illustrations, Cornell beckons us into a world at once distantly magical and tantalizingly, nostalgically "home."" Diane Waldman first met Cornell in 1963, when she was writing her master of fine arts' thesis on the subject of his art, and their friendship continued until his death. Over the years, Waldman has written often about Cornell, adding to the analysis of his art her own personal knowledge gained from interviews with the artist and his family as well as Cornell's letters and papers. In this volume she probes Cornell's elusive imagery in his earliest Surrealist-inspired collages of the 1930s, his masterful box constructions of the 1940s and 1950s, his experimental films, and his final collages in his last years.
152 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
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April 24, 2025
I was talking about Joseph Cornell with a friend who is also a fan and I got this out of the library again. Recommmend.
Cornell’s Boxes
I would have first encountered Cornell’s work as part of a Surrealism/Dada exhibit at the MCA here in Chicago in the seventies, a really wonderfully curated event with lots of usefully explanatory guiding texts to help me understand what was going on. I still have the book generated out of that experience, a wonderful and wonderfully strange representation of that exhibit. DuChamp and Breton seemed like central figures in this outsider art movement, but Cornell? Even more outside than the others. A kind of peripheral member of the team, and not exactly a theorist. With no formal training in art, Cornell was lucky enough to be born in Queens in 1903 and visiting art galleries in the late twenties and early thirties when surrealist art was first being exhibited. Then he had his own ideas about how to respond to that movement, developing collages, montages, and his most lasting contribution, boxes, what he referred to as “poetic memory boxes” filled with ephemera, stuff he found in thrift stores, pictures of movie stars he liked, usually bounded by sturdy wooden frames. He used these strategies to represent his one personal interests in movies, ballet, birds, childhood, women. Predating pop artists Andy Warhol, in a way?
In the sixties and seventies I got art and photography books (Man Ray) out of the library, consumed films from Bunuel, read surrealist fiction and poetry, and from time to time I still do. And fairly recently I went to an exhibit of German surrealism/dada at the Chicago Art Institute which was great. That aesthetic effort to say NO to the modernist effects of Rationalism—endless war, over reliance on technology, industrialism, rising inequality, the destruction of the environment—seemed relevant and important to me, and now, what we are calling neo-liberal capitalism or globalism, seems like an assault to humanity and the Earth in a never ending spiral. Where are the arts in decrying the destruction of the planet?
In that respect, surrealism/dada feels appropriately still relevant as one part of the resistant mix. But what about art that works with this aesthetic for other, more intimate purposes? Cornell is not in the political wing of surrealism; surrealism and dada were also known for play and games and getting back to the garden of childhood as much as anything. Also central was Irrationalism, and the place of Freud’s unconscious, which was always a seething place for exploration of sexual fantasy, for dreams. Cornell was said to insist his early, child-like art be seen at the level of children. But he also had the unconscious as central to all of his work.
In New York Cornell had the opportunity to meet Duchamp and everyone, and everything influenced him, in spite of the fact he was a shy recluse that lived with his mother and younger brother in a modest place in Queens all his life. But he was largely unwritten about until Diane Waldman decided to write her MFA thesis on his work in 1975, traveling to Queens to visit him, a process that extended to nine years until Cornell’s death, and on the basis of those nine years Waldman wrote a book on his work in 1977, and this short but pretty wonderful biography with lots of art appeared 25 years later, the most comprehensive examination of his life and work and worth checking out.
Why does Cornell’s work interest me? It has an intimacy and personal aspect to it, versus some of the abstraction of the surrealism/dada. He wasn’t a formal theorist; he had no formal training. He used surrealist ideas for his own quirky and interesting purposes. Horror/fantasy writer Brooke Wonders wrote a story called “Cornell Box” a couple years ago which gets at the horror/creepy dimension of his fantasy work, typified by shadowy figures, doll heads, and when I read the story I got intrigued to look back into Cornell. Then Goodreads reviewer Mike turned me on to this book through his review.
I think Cornell’s boxes and collages and montages are for me an extension of my interest in comics, multimedia, multigenre, in any approach to inquiry that is multiple, dialogical, as opposed to traditional research and argumentation, which is typically monological. I think his work is romantic in the great tradition of romanticism, celebratory, playful, with an interesting dark streak in it. Waldman only skirts the creepy sexual fantasies/dreams of the largely odd and reclusive Cornell, with his focus on Medici women and movie stars, but that is interesting if also sometimes sort of creepy, shadowy, but this extends out of surrealism’s embrace of the Freudian obsession with sexuality.
The odd Cornell said he hated anyone being obsessed with dates for his works; he thought it created this chronological obsession, but Waldman persisted anyway, thankfully, to organize her book according to the phases of Cornell's work: Romantic Ballet, Medici Boxes, Portraits of Women, Aviary Series, Cosmology (Cosmogony), Film Experiments and Late Collages. Cornell lived and worked in his house most of his life, and his ideas of the world came through his windows, “boxes” of poetic memory and imagination, where he could frame his childhood and lifelong obsessions. He sees through these windows more than what one can see with just eyes.
Cornell’s Boxes
I would have first encountered Cornell’s work as part of a Surrealism/Dada exhibit at the MCA here in Chicago in the seventies, a really wonderfully curated event with lots of usefully explanatory guiding texts to help me understand what was going on. I still have the book generated out of that experience, a wonderful and wonderfully strange representation of that exhibit. DuChamp and Breton seemed like central figures in this outsider art movement, but Cornell? Even more outside than the others. A kind of peripheral member of the team, and not exactly a theorist. With no formal training in art, Cornell was lucky enough to be born in Queens in 1903 and visiting art galleries in the late twenties and early thirties when surrealist art was first being exhibited. Then he had his own ideas about how to respond to that movement, developing collages, montages, and his most lasting contribution, boxes, what he referred to as “poetic memory boxes” filled with ephemera, stuff he found in thrift stores, pictures of movie stars he liked, usually bounded by sturdy wooden frames. He used these strategies to represent his one personal interests in movies, ballet, birds, childhood, women. Predating pop artists Andy Warhol, in a way?
In the sixties and seventies I got art and photography books (Man Ray) out of the library, consumed films from Bunuel, read surrealist fiction and poetry, and from time to time I still do. And fairly recently I went to an exhibit of German surrealism/dada at the Chicago Art Institute which was great. That aesthetic effort to say NO to the modernist effects of Rationalism—endless war, over reliance on technology, industrialism, rising inequality, the destruction of the environment—seemed relevant and important to me, and now, what we are calling neo-liberal capitalism or globalism, seems like an assault to humanity and the Earth in a never ending spiral. Where are the arts in decrying the destruction of the planet?
In that respect, surrealism/dada feels appropriately still relevant as one part of the resistant mix. But what about art that works with this aesthetic for other, more intimate purposes? Cornell is not in the political wing of surrealism; surrealism and dada were also known for play and games and getting back to the garden of childhood as much as anything. Also central was Irrationalism, and the place of Freud’s unconscious, which was always a seething place for exploration of sexual fantasy, for dreams. Cornell was said to insist his early, child-like art be seen at the level of children. But he also had the unconscious as central to all of his work.
In New York Cornell had the opportunity to meet Duchamp and everyone, and everything influenced him, in spite of the fact he was a shy recluse that lived with his mother and younger brother in a modest place in Queens all his life. But he was largely unwritten about until Diane Waldman decided to write her MFA thesis on his work in 1975, traveling to Queens to visit him, a process that extended to nine years until Cornell’s death, and on the basis of those nine years Waldman wrote a book on his work in 1977, and this short but pretty wonderful biography with lots of art appeared 25 years later, the most comprehensive examination of his life and work and worth checking out.
Why does Cornell’s work interest me? It has an intimacy and personal aspect to it, versus some of the abstraction of the surrealism/dada. He wasn’t a formal theorist; he had no formal training. He used surrealist ideas for his own quirky and interesting purposes. Horror/fantasy writer Brooke Wonders wrote a story called “Cornell Box” a couple years ago which gets at the horror/creepy dimension of his fantasy work, typified by shadowy figures, doll heads, and when I read the story I got intrigued to look back into Cornell. Then Goodreads reviewer Mike turned me on to this book through his review.
I think Cornell’s boxes and collages and montages are for me an extension of my interest in comics, multimedia, multigenre, in any approach to inquiry that is multiple, dialogical, as opposed to traditional research and argumentation, which is typically monological. I think his work is romantic in the great tradition of romanticism, celebratory, playful, with an interesting dark streak in it. Waldman only skirts the creepy sexual fantasies/dreams of the largely odd and reclusive Cornell, with his focus on Medici women and movie stars, but that is interesting if also sometimes sort of creepy, shadowy, but this extends out of surrealism’s embrace of the Freudian obsession with sexuality.
The odd Cornell said he hated anyone being obsessed with dates for his works; he thought it created this chronological obsession, but Waldman persisted anyway, thankfully, to organize her book according to the phases of Cornell's work: Romantic Ballet, Medici Boxes, Portraits of Women, Aviary Series, Cosmology (Cosmogony), Film Experiments and Late Collages. Cornell lived and worked in his house most of his life, and his ideas of the world came through his windows, “boxes” of poetic memory and imagination, where he could frame his childhood and lifelong obsessions. He sees through these windows more than what one can see with just eyes.
June 14, 2011
Cornell comes across as a fascinating character. Waldman's writing is clear and well organized. I'd recommend to anyone interested in 20th century art; especially fans of surrealism, dada and, of course, Cornell.
June 16, 2011
While reading Howard Zinn's The People's History of the United States I experienced some personal losses. Unable to focus on additional upsetting news, I turned instead to a book on art.
Diane Waldman's personal and scholarly JOSEPH CORNELL Master of Dreams brought comfort at a difficult time. Waldman met Cornell in 1963 while writing her MFA thesis about him and she spent a lot of time with him until his death 9 years later. The book is organized chronologically with the phases of Cornell's work: Romantic Ballet, Medici Boxes, Portraits of Women, Aviary Series, Cosmology (Cosmogony), Film Experiments and Late Collages.
Waldman's book contains personal and touching insights I haven't found in other books about Cornell. Although he resisted giving dates for his works, believing they diminished the their value, readers will appreciate the way Waldman has organized Cornell's rich oeuvre in a cohesive and beautiful manner.
Life, death, love, time and emotion are wonderfully depicted in Cornell's art, his works reproduced beautifully here by Abrhams, and observed masterfully in this book by Waldman.
Reading books can heal.
Diane Waldman's personal and scholarly JOSEPH CORNELL Master of Dreams brought comfort at a difficult time. Waldman met Cornell in 1963 while writing her MFA thesis about him and she spent a lot of time with him until his death 9 years later. The book is organized chronologically with the phases of Cornell's work: Romantic Ballet, Medici Boxes, Portraits of Women, Aviary Series, Cosmology (Cosmogony), Film Experiments and Late Collages.
Waldman's book contains personal and touching insights I haven't found in other books about Cornell. Although he resisted giving dates for his works, believing they diminished the their value, readers will appreciate the way Waldman has organized Cornell's rich oeuvre in a cohesive and beautiful manner.
Life, death, love, time and emotion are wonderfully depicted in Cornell's art, his works reproduced beautifully here by Abrhams, and observed masterfully in this book by Waldman.
Reading books can heal.
December 9, 2009
Joseph Cornell is magic.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/...
"A poetic theater of memory"
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/...
Beautiful, strange, charming, fascinating, dreamlike, exciting, odd...
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/...
"A poetic theater of memory"
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/...
Beautiful, strange, charming, fascinating, dreamlike, exciting, odd...
June 16, 2011
Easy read, beautiful images and a wonderful story of a man who created "poetic theaters of memory." I knew very little of Cornell life/art. Cornell, a deeply intellectual and devoted man of faith, constructed wooden boxes with images and items that reflected the things that he loved or that brought him pleasure. Despite hard times in his early years (father dying from Leukemia when he was 13) and supporting his family, Cornell committed to making time for creating his art and to enjoy the arts (ballet, galleries, art museums) in NYC. He was influenced by the Surrealists and he experimented with filmmaking.
Read
June 26, 2011I thought this was a well-written book. I liked the imagery in the book of Cornell's boxes. It was almost a child-like innocence in the way he made his boxes with childhood ephemeria, like jacks, balls, and little odds and ends. I am fascinated how one man can turn the most mundane everyday pieces of objects and turn it into works of art. Amazing book.
August 2, 2022
I first encountered Joseph Cornell's work at the Cleveland Museum of Art sometime around 1988. As a kid I was deeply skeptical of art from the 20th century the museum felt was worth displaying, and my opinion on that hasn't changed much. With Cornell's boxes, though, I could see the appeal. They were evocative and deeply nostalgic, containing a little mystery-- Why did the artist choose these items in particular? It was the same instinct that drives collectors of antique knickknacks, but focused down to a single beautiful instance, arranged in a collage that felt purposeful if eclectic.
He is also, in my mind, connected with William Gibson's Count Zero. One of the storylines in that book has to do with tracing down an artist who is creating memory boxes resembling Cornell's. I read the book around 1995, and that particular story remains my favorite from Gibson. Lately I've been reminded of Cornell (and Gibson's story) as I play with AI tools that create collages from all the work they've been exposed to.
Anyway, I wanted to understand him better. What was he trying to achieve? What was his background that led to such material?
He was interested in the nature of dreams and the subconscious. He was a collector and a bit eccentric. He rarely left his home in Queens. He was born around the turn of the century, so the things in his boxes were mostly the kinds of things that would have seemed nostalgic to him. I was surprised to learn that his early works were meant to be handled, so that the objects would roll around and recombine in a kaleidoscopic way. Encountering his boxes only occasionally each seemed unique, but collected like this you can see certain recurring themes-- astronomy, childhood, pipes, Venice. He also made collage films, but rarely showed them after Dali got upset at them for some ridiculous Dali reason. He was more playful than I realized: he liked to make visual jokes, his films contain cartoons and puppet shows, and he once had a gallery show for children, which served cake and pop and had all the artwork down at kids' level.
He grew up fairly wealthy, but his father died when he was 14, and from then on (except when he attended college) he lived with his mother and disabled brother in a modest house in Queens, and supported them by working at a textile factory and as a salesman until his boxes began to sell around 1950. He died in 1972.
He is also, in my mind, connected with William Gibson's Count Zero. One of the storylines in that book has to do with tracing down an artist who is creating memory boxes resembling Cornell's. I read the book around 1995, and that particular story remains my favorite from Gibson. Lately I've been reminded of Cornell (and Gibson's story) as I play with AI tools that create collages from all the work they've been exposed to.
Anyway, I wanted to understand him better. What was he trying to achieve? What was his background that led to such material?
He was interested in the nature of dreams and the subconscious. He was a collector and a bit eccentric. He rarely left his home in Queens. He was born around the turn of the century, so the things in his boxes were mostly the kinds of things that would have seemed nostalgic to him. I was surprised to learn that his early works were meant to be handled, so that the objects would roll around and recombine in a kaleidoscopic way. Encountering his boxes only occasionally each seemed unique, but collected like this you can see certain recurring themes-- astronomy, childhood, pipes, Venice. He also made collage films, but rarely showed them after Dali got upset at them for some ridiculous Dali reason. He was more playful than I realized: he liked to make visual jokes, his films contain cartoons and puppet shows, and he once had a gallery show for children, which served cake and pop and had all the artwork down at kids' level.
He grew up fairly wealthy, but his father died when he was 14, and from then on (except when he attended college) he lived with his mother and disabled brother in a modest house in Queens, and supported them by working at a textile factory and as a salesman until his boxes began to sell around 1950. He died in 1972.
March 25, 2020
The type of collection of images that leaves one speechless and little off balance, and a precise and clear text that provides the reader with a lot to further investigate about Cornell and much more. This is deserving of a longer review, but that's not possible at the moment, all one needs to know to the question of whether to read this is that the answer is a yes to everyone, so go out and find it.
February 28, 2019
Joseph Cornell's Master of Dreams takes you to poetic and fantasy land. 5 star from my side.
July 27, 2019
Read to this one now and really enjoying it. I love writing style and everything Describe in this book.
August 18, 2019
I loved that the entire novel was really a letter, in a way. There’s a mystery at the center so I can’t say too much more. But this YA book was short and sweet. I really liked it.
November 17, 2020
Interesting, clear, methodical, informative... well frame tempo...
October 13, 2024
Useful overview of the chronology and major thematic arcs of the idiosyncratic and inimitable Joseph Cornell
February 18, 2015
If you are looking for a Joseph Cornell book that has both great photos of his work and good text on his life and his work, this is the book to get.
Joseph Cornell's love of collecting began with American Sandwich glass. Cornell developed stomach ailments that during a Christmas break from school, "Cornell confided in Betty that he had studied astronomy at school and was frightened by the concept of infinity."
He found relief from his stomach problems through the practice of Christian Science and it is this belief that influenced his work. He had no formal art training.
His art is fascinating and thankfully this oversized book has many full page color photos of it.
Joseph Cornell's love of collecting began with American Sandwich glass. Cornell developed stomach ailments that during a Christmas break from school, "Cornell confided in Betty that he had studied astronomy at school and was frightened by the concept of infinity."
He found relief from his stomach problems through the practice of Christian Science and it is this belief that influenced his work. He had no formal art training.
His art is fascinating and thankfully this oversized book has many full page color photos of it.
May 26, 2007
Joseph Cornell (from what little I know of him) was an eccentric loner in Queens who created meticulous gorgeous assemblage pieces that evoked magic, childhood, nature and the cosmos.
I heard somewhere that Cornell insisted his pieces were installed at the viewing level of children, instead of adult height. I'm not sure if his intent was to actually make the works more accessable to kids (I doubt galleries would have humored this unconventional approach to art) or simply to make a statement. Either way, I love the sentiment and agree with it wholeheartedly.
I heard somewhere that Cornell insisted his pieces were installed at the viewing level of children, instead of adult height. I'm not sure if his intent was to actually make the works more accessable to kids (I doubt galleries would have humored this unconventional approach to art) or simply to make a statement. Either way, I love the sentiment and agree with it wholeheartedly.
November 13, 2007
I recently saw a beautiful retrospective of Cornell's work. I would like to see a book that dispalys his boxes and collages alongside the excerpted writings in astronomy,physics,dance,poetry,mathematics that inspired each. Not sure it's possible that a book could do his 3-D work visual justice, but the writings would be fun to contemplate at liesure rather than hunched over a museum display case.
Read
December 3, 2013I've read three Joseph Cornell books, and I was glad to have read this one first. Cornell's body of work is one that cannot be separated from his home, from which he looked through his windows to enter his dreams. His boxes are all windows; they offer a safe frame from which to contemplate the outside world. Waldman is a narrator who did not look at these windows from the outside, her perspective is special because she stood at the windowsill by his side.
March 12, 2016
This book really didn't add any to my knowledge of Joseph Cornell. Most of the pictures were in black and white. Bummer. I leared as much from Secrets in a Box (Adventures in Art) by Joseph Cornell, Alison Baverstock, and Christopher Wynne, and enjoyed it far more. Not bad - but not really good, either.
August 18, 2007
I have to admit that I did not read all the text... I don't feel the need to know an artist's entire biography in order to appreciate his work... but the pictures are plentiful and fabulous. Cornell is an unknown to too many.
May 25, 2008
Joseph Cornell was an amazing artist, and an interesting character. Unfortunately I didn't jave time to read the whole book, so I skimmed and focused on some especially interesting sections. I hope to get back to it one of these days.
Read
January 4, 2015Incredible! Inspired me to live more actively and pursue my interests (perhaps because Cornell didn't?).
April 5, 2014
Joseph Cornell made some exquisite things and it was a pleasure reading about them. I do wish the author had talked more about his construction methods and where he got his materials.
February 15, 2013
Overview of Joseph Cornell's life and work by an author who knew him well. Highly recommended as a first book to read when considering Cornell and his work.
February 2, 2014
i wish i could see this work in person, but this book is the next best thing. gorgeous reproductions and insight into the artist.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews