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Untitled (Sun Box)

A work made of box construction with painted glass.
© The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York

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  • A work made of box construction with painted glass.

Date:

c. 1955

Artist:

Joseph Cornell
American, 1903–1972

About this artwork

Although spare in appearance, this box brings together several familiar themes in Cornell‘s work: birds (associated with the ring), travel, cosmology, and popular imagery. The startling, grotesquely grinning paper sun suggests children’s entertainment, perhaps even a cardboard theater. The contrast between this yellow sun and the white cork balls, which by association become moons, is echoed in the white and yellow dots of paint, meticulously formed into circles, for all their apparently random splattering. The formal and the metaphorical are beautifully balanced here, as so often in Cornell’s work.

— Entry, Dawn Ades, Surrealist Art: The Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1997, p. 82-83.

Status

On View, Gallery 397

Department

Modern Art

Artist

Joseph Cornell

Title

Untitled (Sun Box)

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1950–1960

Medium

Box construction with painted glass

Inscriptions

Inscribed and signed on back on paper labels: blue marble in glass. / Joseph Cornell

Dimensions

16.2 × 24.8 × 10.5 cm (6 3/8 × 9 3/4 × 4 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Lindy and Edwin Bergman Joseph Cornell Collection

Reference Number

1982.1864

Copyright

© The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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