Anecdotes of Modern Art XII A

[elag]

Joseph Cornell

Julien Levy remembers how the unknown Joseph Cornell watched him package
pictures to send from his gallery to the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford,
Connecticut, for a Surrealist exhibition. Cornell lingered.

"Closing time," I suggested. But he had already fumbled out of his
overcoat pocket two or three cardboards on which were pasted cut-outs of
steel engravings. Collages! I glanced hastily at a bundle of collages
by Max Ernst only just unpacked and stacked on the bookshelf. But these
were not any of those. "Where did you find these?" Was it not a
blessing I hadn't thrown the man out, thought I. "I make them," Joseph said.