He couldn’t draw or paint. He didn’t consider himself an artist, instead he called himself a “maker” or “designer.” Living in New York City in the depression, Cornell became a collector of small objects and photographs, things he found on his walks through the city. One day in 1931, Cornell visited Julian Levy as he prepared photographs by Alfred Stieglitz for show. Levy was just about to open the Julien Levy Gallery, and Cornell watched as Levy unpacked new surrealist collages by Max Ernst. This sparked Cornell to go home and make his own collages, using the photographs he’d been collecting. He brought the collages back to Levy, and his work debued along with the surrealists from Paris: Max Ernst, Man Ray, and Salvador Dali in the 1932 exhibition Surréalisme at the Julien Levy Gallery, the first Surrealist exhibit in America. One of Cornell’s first collages ended up being the show postcard.
Joseph Cornell later went on to build his famous shadow boxes, assemblage arrangements of his delightful found objects. [image_with_animation image_url=”8528″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”]
Assemblage
a collection or gathering of things or people.
a work of art made by grouping found or unrelated objects.
Cockatoo with Watch Faces, 1949, Box construction with inoperative music
Celestial Navigation, 1958
Solar Set, 1958
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“My boxes are life’s experiences aesthetically expressed.” – Joseph Cornell
[image_with_animation image_url=”8958″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] Alex Walker, an Especially Enjoyable student in my Intermediate Studio class, decided to work on making his brushwork more direct and decisive by doing a study of John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Henry James. Since his pilgrimage to see it in London brought the sad news that the painting …
Today’s creative challenge idea comes from AJ Power, the League’s illustration and comics instructor. This project combines a scribble-and-respond drawing with an aspect of the panel exercise from Day 2. AJ calls it a “Monkey Wrench” project, because it gets you out of your habits, and gives you something unexpected to work with. The primary …
Charity Lynn Baker is an artist living and working in New York. She’s been drawing a lot lately. Her dream-like narrative scenes sometimes remind me of Marc Chagall’s, only Charity’s are more grounded. Formally trained in architecture, when asked about her compositions, she remarked that she likes humans and she likes geometry. Her drawings are …
Every week in figure drawing I teach a different drawing approach. Today was straight line measures; which always feels to beginners like they’re getting tangled up in bicycle spokes, but it’s invaluable and even relaxing for returning students. The basic idea of straight line measures is that you use straight lines to measure out the …
Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell later went on to build his famous shadow boxes, assemblage arrangements of his delightful found objects. [image_with_animation image_url=”8528″ alignment=”” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”]
[divider line_type=”Full Width Line” line_thickness=”1″ divider_color=”default” custom_height=”20 Are you a collector of photographs and found objects? Consider taking Paul D. McKee’s Found Object Sculpture class April 14/15, and Melanie Reed’s Integrated Collage Design April 21/28. You don’t have to call yourself an artist, you can just make stuff.
Apply this 48 hour coupon code at checkout for 20% off: MAKERS. (Don’t wait! Coupon expires March 14th.)
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