Joseph CORNELL. Window. Object. [1937]. - Lot 78

Joseph CORNELL. Window. Object. [1937]. Leporello of 19 original bistre photographs mounted on the endpapers of a 19th-century book (4.1 x 4 cm), canvas fold joints, in all 76 cm long, all in a blue half-chagrin book-shaped box. An extremely rare object by Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), at the crossroads of assemblage and experimental film, of which the American artist was one of the pioneers. It consists of 19 photographic variations on the same motif - a window between two columns. Its production follows closely on the heels of the screening of the artist's first film at the Galerie Julien Lévy in 1936. A self-taught artist, Joseph Cornell took part by chance in the first Surrealist exhibition on the American continent at the Julien Lévy gallery in 1932. He is thus considered the first American Surrealist, even though he never joined the group. André Breton singled out the singularity of his work in Genèse et Perspectives du Surréalisme in 1939: "Cornell, on the borders of stereotypical, anaglyphic and stereotyped vision, has meditated on an experience that overturns the conventions of object use". Another version based on different photographs and endpapers is in the Mark Kelman collection. Provenance: Galerie 1900-2000. Exhibitions : Joseph Cornell, Galerie 1900-2000, 1989, reproduction p. 23 of Edouard Jaguer's catalog - La Révolution surréaliste, Centre Pompidou, 2002, with reproduction p. 292.