The American Artist Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) and Astronomy

FAIN: FB-51843-05

Kirsten Ann Hoving
President and Fellows of Middlebury College (Middlebury, VT 05753-6004)

The American artist Joseph Cornell (1903-72) is widely recognized as one of the most important twentieth-century masters of collage. Known for his shallow boxes filled with text, pictures, and small objects, Cornell combined factual information with imaginary elements to produce works devoted to such themes as movie stars, butterflies, and nineteenth-century French literature. The majority of his oeuvre, however, concerned astronomy, with over a hundred boxes devoted to aspects of the planets and the stars. I am proposing a book-length study on the role of astronomy in Cornell's work, a topic that has not yet been addressed in detail by scholars.

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