Product Description

Until the publication of Deborah Solomon's Utopia Parkway, Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) was thought of as a recluse who made his art almost accidentally during his humdrum life, which he spent looking after his mother and sickly brother. But this "remarkably energetic, lavishly detailed and boldly interpretive biography" (Donna Seaman, Chicago Tribune) established Cornell as an artist as serious as the Surrealists, Abstract Expressionists, and conceptual artists who dominated the New York art world in his lifetime. Not only does Solomon show that Cornell's shadow boxes were vastly influential in that world, she also shows that Cornell was a regular figure there, admired by Dal, Rothko, and Rauschenberg. Most of all, she reveals his astonishing inner life, swirling with fantasies about long-dead ballerinas, visions of Paris, and otherworldly desires. "Solomon has narrowed the distance between the life and the art," Arthur C. Danto wrote in Slate, ". . . with a sympathy and generosity one would hardly have dreamt possible."

ALA Book of the Year
New York Times Notable Book of the Year
New York Public Library Book to Remember

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #594715 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.53 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 444 pages

From Amazon.com
Joseph Cornell (1903-72) lived in Queens with a domineering mother and severely handicapped brother while creating unique, haunting art: boxes filled with lovingly assembled objects and printed images. But this sympathetic biography demonstrates that he was more than an eccentric recluse, chronicling his friendships with other artists and his immersion in the avant-garde movements of his time. Art critic Deborah Solomon spikes her astute judgments with humor--noting her subject's fondness for epistolary relationships that spared him the unease of physical contact, she comments, "Cornell would have been great on the Internet."

From Booklist
Solomon, art critic for the Wall Street Journal, has written the very first biography of Joseph Cornell (1903^-72), one of the world's most elusive artists, and it is a work of compelling perception and glorious inclusiveness. A self-taught artist uncomfortable with traditional mediums, Cornell made provocative collages and reliquary-like boxes, unprecedented creations inspired by his fascination with the quiet poetics of found objects and recycled images, French literature, the magic of movies and dance, and a highly romanticized notion of innocence. Cornell is usually characterized as an isolated genius constructing his beautiful assemblages in the cluttered basement of a deceptively ordinary house on Utopia Parkway in Flushing, New York, where he lived with his shrewish, widowed mother and sweet-natured, handicapped brother. This image of Cornell as an "art monk" is accurate to a point, but--and this is the main thrust of Solomon's eye-opening interpretation--he was profoundly affected by the art world percolating intensely just a train ride away in Manhattan and forged mutually inspiring associations with Marcel Duchamp, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Andy Warhol. Solomon also analyzes Cornell's troubled sexuality, his work as a devout Christian Scientist, and his highly influential experimental films. The quiet storm of Cornell's art arose from a conflict of universal significance: the clash between his "spiritual aspirations and sensual compulsions." Donna Seaman

From Kirkus Reviews
Joseph Cornell, an American artist most famous for his quirky shadow boxes, is astutely revealed by Wall Street Journal art critic Solomon as a shy, complex figure--even more enigmatic than his art. Cornell's shadow boxes and collages played on juxtapositions of common objects--pictures of ballerinas and movie stars (his Marilyn Monroe file predated Andy Warhol's), bits of costumes, pennies, feathers. Understanding his work requires making connections among these odd bits. Solomon (Jackson Pollock, 1987) likewise sifts through the seemingly disconnected minutiae of the artist's life and pieces together a convincing portrait of the man and his work. It's been hard to label Cornell: His genre-bending art has been linked with Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and eventually Pop Art. Cornell's life, spent in New York City, similarly defies classification, providing none of the usual seedy grist available to biographers of famous artists. He was for most of his life a virgin. He catered to the whims of his overbearing mother and cared for his sickly brother in their small house on Utopia Parkway in Flushing, Queens. His pleasures were small- -sifting through trinkets in five-and-dime stores for objects to use in his art, riding the old Third Street El, and consuming an alarming amount of sugar. Cornell's diary, a hodgepodge of 40 years' worth of notes, includes catalogs of sweets the artist ate and annotations on the many infatuations he developed--from the great 19th-century ballerina Fanny Cerrito to a down-on-her-luck waitress. Cornell, ever the observer, was socially awkward: A movie clerk once mistook his hastily offered flowers for a gun and called the police. Solomon intertwines a secret, small life with the great artistic movements of the century and tells a story that will intrigue even those who know nothing of the artist's work. (illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.