Joseph Cornell

Castelli Feigen Corcoran, New York

Washington, D.C., Middendorf/Lane Galley, Tableau: An American Selection, September - October 1980, cat. no. 3
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Joseph Cornell, November 1980 - January 1981, cat. no. 179, illustrated (dated circa 1954 - 56)
Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Individuals: A selected history of contemporary art, 1945 - 1986, December 1986 - January 1988
New York, Allan Stone Gallery, Joseph Cornell, October - December 2002, cat. no. 31, illustrated in color (dated circa 1950 - 53)
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian American Art Museum; Salem, Peabody Essex Museum, San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination, November 2006 - January 2008, cat. no. 128, pl. 50, p. 160, illustrated in color and p. 161, illustrated in color (detail)

This work is in excellent condition overall. There is some overall wear inherent to the original state of the found objects and the artist's aesthetic, as is common for Cornell's work. The artist applied the interior white pigment more heavily at the wood joins of each compartment, often extending the pigment beyond the wood surface at these junctures. There is some fine hairline cracking in the paint at these junctures. There is also some wear to the edges of the exterior box as is to be expected for a work of this age. A short ¾ in. black smudge is also apparent on the interior of the glass near center.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

On the heels of the extraordinary success and attention garnered from the debut of his Aviaries at the Charles Egan gallery in 1949, Joseph Cornell continued to evolve and transform his exquisite boxes in the 1950s, producing works of exceptional quality. While maintaining the thematic white-washed habitats of the Aviaries, Cornell introduced profound change to the interior structures and their inhabitants. The present work, Untitled (Dovecote) dating from the early 1950s, is an astonishingly beautiful compendium of succinctly ordered nesting places aptly titled for their resemblance to structured dovecotes. While greatly informed by the prior Aviaries,  the Dovecotes alternate between boxes with a minimalist aura of absence to works populated with spectacular largesse such as the present Untitled (Dovecote). This evolution broadened the conceptual range of Cornell's inventiveness and enabled him to produce some of his finest work.

In 1953, Cornell enjoyed continued critical acclaim from his third solo show at the Egan Gallery. In a review of the exhibition, Sidney Geist noted, "For years, while so many artists have been leaving so much out of their paintings, Cornell has been making the beautiful, shallow, glass-faced boxes into which he puts everything he loves." (Deborah Solomon, Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell, London, 1997, p. 217).  This observation rings particularly true of the present Dovecote whose imagery was influenced by one of the most profound relationships in the elusive and quirky artist's life. Youth and nostalgia charmingly emote from the colorful fragments of a previous innocent life: rubber balls, wooden toy blocks and tiny figurines among them.  To understand the origins of the hauntingly beautiful imagery harnessed in the present construction, one must revert to June 6, 1910, the day that his brother Robert Cornell was born with debilitating cerebral palsy. Six years his senior, Joseph was profoundly protective of his handicapped younger brother, and felt responsible for his welfare. Throughout his life, Cornell would go to great lengths to entertain his brother, and much of the material he fastidiously gathered over the years appeared to be fragments of materials once employed to this effect. This weighed heavily on Cornell throughout his life, as he once reflected that the pursuit of happiness was "quickly being plunged into a world in which every triviality becomes imbued with significance." (Joseph Cornell, quoted in Deborah Solomon, Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell, London, 1997, p. 92).

In the intimacy and delicacy of works such as Untitled (Dovecote), one senses the depths of pathos in the artist's character, a trait often overlooked in light of his relatively hermetic existence. His brother Robert's condition prevented  the natural progression of physical growth or mental maturity prior to his death at 46. As John Bernard Myers noted, "there are few adults capable of a sustained and committed attachment to a person thus handicapped, and even fewer who would find in such a relationship an abiding source of inspiration..." (Exh. Cat., New York, ACA Galleries, Joseph Cornell, May 1975, p. 4).  Although there is little to substantiate the claim that Cornell started making art mainly as a vehicle to amuse and entertain Robert, there is no question that the children's toys and playthings reverberate with references to Cornell's shared bond with Robert, the eternal child.

Untitled (Dovecote) harnesses the ephemeral and mysterious qualities at the heart and soul of Cornell's greatest works.  Standing before it, one succumbs to a youthful world of associations, yearnings and elusive meanings. Each childish yet sacrosanct vignette suspends its chosen element in guarded reverie and engages the viewer with their own memories of childish innocence.  The formalist construction of the box is of considerable significance here, as the objects project in sharp relief in the shallow space, and the drama of their stark compositional contrast is heightened by the color of the objects in contrast to the white of the grid that surrounds them.  The viewer is drawn back into the reverie of their own childhood with a sense of re-discovery. The deeply personal content tellingly indicates the underlying seriousness of Cornell's works which, in this instance, appears profoundly autobiographical.  The contrast between the frivolous materials and their far more serious foundations make Cornell's Dovecotes poetic and personal passages within the greater universe of Cornell's mythical constructions.