Joseph Cornell

Joseph Cornell pioneered the practice of assemblage with his signature multimedia “shadow boxes.” In these poetic, associative works, the artist combined found objects, painted surfaces, and collage. Cornell was a major collector of everyday ephemera, and his materials ranged from marbles and toys to maps and seashells. Film was a major influence, and the artist also made his own surreal, experimental works of cinema: Rose Hobart (ca. 1936) was itself a collage film. Cornell’s work has sold for millions on the secondary market and belongs in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Tate, the Museo Reina Sofía, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.