Joseph Cornell

An artist whose life and work continue to be endlessly fascinating, Joseph Cornell remains one of the most popular artists of the twentieth century. Now available at an attractive price, this classic book on the Prestel list provides a captivating entree into the artist's remarkable inner world: a universe populated with the empty cages, mirrors, clay pipes, postage stamps, marbles, thimbles and paper scraps Cornell collected in his basement repository and fashioned into self-contained constructions, montages, collages, and films. The artist's relationship to both American and European Romanticism, his involvement with the Surrealist movement, the peculiar mechanics of his work, and a glimpse at his cinematic explorations are accompanied by an illuminating biography and numerous illustrations. This survey brings to life the work of a brilliant artist whose imaginative re-ordering of the world's chaos is as inspiring today as it was half a century ago.… (more)