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Untitled (Bird Habitat, Orange Glass)

Dateca. 1960

Label TextIn the early 1930s, Joseph Cornell became acquainted with the work of the Surrealists and artists such as Marcel Duchamp, through the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, which included his early collages in the first Surrealism Exhibition in 1932. By 1936 he was building shadow boxes to contain his assemblages, which combined found trinkets and all manner of bric-a-brac with photographs, magazine illustrations or appropriated engravings. The objects and images are unified by both conceptual and visual associations, often invoking mysterious qualities or a sense of nostalgic reverie, and would appear to link Cornell to Surrealism, but he did not share the Surrealists' interest in psychology and the subconscious. Birds recur in many of Cornell's boxes, both as two-dimensional images and as actual stuffed birds. Another common theme is the sense of play inherent in many of the works, as evidenced by objects like balls and alphabet blocks, and by the kinetic aspects of some of the works. Cornell continued to make his box assemblages into the 1960s.

Object number93.109

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "International Abstraction: Making Painting Real", May 2, 2003 - February 29, 2004 Vancouver, British Columbia, Vancouver Art Gallery, The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art, May 28 - October 2, 2011 Published ReferencesEades, Dawn, Vancouver, British Columbia, Vancouver Art Gallery, The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art, 2011, pg. 194

Credit LineGift of The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation

Dimensions12 5/8 x 9 3/16 x 5 in. (32.07 x 23.34 x 12.7 cm)

MediumAssemblage with box and light