JOSEPH CORNELL (1903–1972)

Untitled (Cave Digger), 1933
Gouache on cardboard
Jean Farley Levy Estate

Levy considered Joseph Cornell, an American-born surrealist, to be the gallery’s most significant discovery. Best known for collages and box constructions—small wooden boxes filled with juxtaposed objects, and usually covered with a pane of glass—Cornell drew from Duchamp, Ernst, and other surrealist influences, even though he disliked being associated with the French surrealist movement, claiming that he “never liked the kind of black magic that Dali, Breton, etc. go in for—it’s always seemed cheap to me.” In 1936, Levy nonetheless called Cornell “one of the very few Americans at the present time who fully and creatively understands the surrealist viewpoint.”