Joseph Cornell

Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) Souvenir of a Penny Arcade signed and titled 'Joseph Cornell Souvenir of a Penny Arcade' (on the reverse) paper collage, copper coins, and pastel on board 15 5/8 x 12 5/8 in. (39.6 x 32 cm.) Executed circa 1960. Collection of Celeste and Armand Bartos

Lot Description Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) Magic Soap Bubble Set signed 'Joseph Cornell' (on a paper label affixed to the inside) wood box construction--wood, glass, printed paper, paint, seashells, velvet, clay pipes, rubber bands, nails 18 x 22 x 3¼ in. (45.7 x 55.8 x 8.2 cm.) Executed in 1940. Provenance Outlines Gallery, Pittsburgh Mr. and Mrs. Orin Raphael, Pittsburgh By descent from the above to the present owner Pre-Lot Text Property of an Important American Estate Literature V. Johnson, "You Can't Win and You Can't Lose So Swiss Pay Off in Musical Bells," Pittsburgh Post, 31 March 1944. Exhibited Pittsburgh, Outlines Gallery, Surrealist Objects--Toys, Peep-Shows, Pin-Ball Machines and Others--by Joseph Cornell, March-April 1944. Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Orin Raphael, December 1978-January 1979. New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Joseph Cornell, November 1980-January 1981, p. 158, no. 80 (illustrated). View Lot Notes > "Shadowboxes become poetic theaters or settings wherein [their contents] are metamorphosed [into] the elements of a childhood pastime. The fragile, shimmering globules become the shimmering but more enduring planets--a connotation of moon and tides" (J. Cornell, quoted in D. Waldman, Joseph Cornell, exh. cat., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, p. 13). Joseph Cornell's enchanting Magic Soap Bubble Set was first acquired by Elizabeth Raphael, one of Pittsburgh's most influential art patrons. When she was just twenty-one years old, she opened Outlines, the city's first modern art gallery. Local art students like Andy Warhol "made time to visit [the] local avant-garde gallery called Outlines, where he was exposed to the work of such cutting-edge artists...as John Cage, Buckminster Fuller, Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Cornell" (Andy Warhol Museum Staff, Andy Warhol: 365 Takes, Pittsburgh, 2004, p. 7). Her 1944 show, "Surrealist Objects: Toys, Pinball Machines and Others"--Cornell's first solo exhibition outside New York--presented Magic Soap Bubble Set and eleven other early shadowboxes. The exhibition was reviewed in the local Post Gazette by a somewhat baffled writer, who headlined the article, "Surrealism Invades Pinball Machine Field With Nickelless Objet d'art--For a Price," (V. Johnson, Post Gazette, 31 March 1944). Raphael's other exhibitions were met with similarly perplexed reviews, with titles ranging from, "Weird French Film Shown at Outlines" to "One-man Surrealist Show is Largely a Bottle Display." Despite the conservative taste of locals, Raphael continued to pioneer modern art in Pittsburgh. Her gallery became known as a salon for creative talent, supplementing its exhibitions with a stimulating program of lectures by Lázló Moholy-Nagy, collaborative performances by Merce Cunningham and John Cage, and avant-garde films by Jean Cocteau. Outline's list of exhibited artists reads like a roll call of the most important of the 20th century, from early modernists Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Henri Matisse to contemporaries Jackson Pollock, Joseph Albers and Alexander Calder. The gallery closed in 1947, but not before mounting numerous shows that forged a path for local institutions and museums, including the Carnegie Institute. Raphael's legacy will be chronicled in the forthcoming documentary, Tracing Outlines, to be released this year. Raphael first encountered Cornell's art at Peggy Guggenheim's famous New York gallery, The Art of This Century. She remembers, "I asked her if there was any chance of getting [Cornell] for a one man show. She said she'd be thrilled but would have to ask him. I wrote him a couple of letters and may even have visited him and he was excited about it...The show was very popular" (E. Raphael, quoted in "Elizabeth Rockwell Raphael Interview," Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, www.contemporarycraft.org). Her extraordinary commitment to modern art was entirely without financial agenda; in fact, she often bought and sold works at lower prices, personally underwriting the difference to jumpstart an artist's career. Her bold patronage of Cornell's art was especially prescient: at the time she put on "Surrealist Objects," she remembers how "the only artists who admired [Cornell's] work were Surrealists...Nothing happened for Joseph until years later when the [Museum of Modern Art] decided to give him a one-man show." (E. Raphael quoted in op. cit.). Lent by Raphael to the Museum of Modern Art retrospective in 1980, Magic Soap Bubble Set bore witness to the growing recognition of Cornell's work, as it was exhibited early on at the visionary Pittsburgh gallery and later, at the eminent modern museum. In Magic Soap Bubble Set, Cornell arranges the fragments of his Lower Manhattan wanderings, transforming his dime-store treasures into enchanting microcosmic cabinets. The work belongs to the Soap Bubble Set series, Cornell's first group of mature box constructions. In the late 1930s, the artist learned new carpentry skills that allowed him to make more refined, wood-frame objects which replaced his earlier paperboard ones. The first of the series was included in the MoMA's Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism exhibition, organized by the museum's founding director Alfred H. Barr Jr. The set was shortly thereafter acquired by the Wadsworth Athenaeum--Cornell's first work to enter a museum collection. Magic Soap Bubble Set presents creamy, pale coloring and grand divisions signature of his earliest boxes. Cornell places a German lunar map as the central backdrop; in front, two cordial glasses bookend a series of glass discs on a bed of purple fabric. Lateral panels hold mirrored arrangements of white pipes, glass marbles and two seashells. On the uppermost shelf, wooden cylinders hang from the top, stamped with images that refer to celestial navigation: the mythical figure Andromeda, constellations, a seafaring ship, the planet Jupiter, and a bird's head. The roundness of the marbles, glass circles and lunar map, appealed to Cornell as they allude to the spherical soap bubble. Traditionally, the soap bubble is read as an allegory of vanitas: its shimmering, diaphanous surface acts as a memento mori, a reminder of the transience of life and its earthly objects. Similarly the work's juxtaposition of distinct textures of glass, seashells, and clay alludes to 17th century still lifes and the treasures and imagery newly discovered from seafaring voyages. Celestial navigation became his primary visual metaphor for extended travel across time and space. In this light, Magic Soap Bubble Set is particularly bittersweet, since Cornell often stayed within the confines of his house on Utopia Parkway in Queens, never travelling further than the Northeast where he grew up. Despite his cloistered life, Cornell used his boxes to investigate far-off, imagined universes.

LOT 217 PROPERTY OF PATRICIA JOHANSON JOSEPH CORNELL 1903 - 1972 PARROT signed with the name Cherubino and dated 10/17/59 on the reverse colored pencil, ink, tissue paper, leaf and paper collage on newspaper 11 3/4 by 8 7/8 in. 29.8 by 22.5 cm. Executed in 1959, this work is accompanied by an envelope to E.C. Goossen and a typed poem by Cornell, which is stapled to the top left corner of the collage.

Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) Untitled (Sand Tray with Sun Face) signed 'Joseph Cornell' (on a paper label affixed to the underside) wood box construction--oil, printed paper, metal coil, metal ball, plastic and sand 1½ x 9 x 14 7/8 (3.8 x 22.8 x 37.7 cm.) Executed circa 1951-1957. Art Investments, Ltd., Texas Acquired from the above by the present owner

ƑJoseph Cornell (1903-1972) The Human Thermostat, circa 1960 Collage sur panneau Signé au dos Printed paper collage on board Signed on the reverse 30 x 22 cm - 11 7/8 x 8 3/4 in. Estimation : € 30,000-40,000 Provenance : The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation L&M Arts, New York Expositions : New York, L&M Arts, Joseph Cornell: Collages, du 19 juillet au 13 septembre 2002 San Francisco, Fraenkel Gallery, Joseph Cornell Collages, du 6 mars au 6 avril 2003 Portland, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, A Century of Collage, du 11 novembre au 30 décembre 2006 Roslyn Harbor, Nassau County Museum of Art, Surrealism: Dreams on Canvas, du 26 mai au 12 août 2007, reproduit page 55 du catalogue de l'exposition