Mr. Cornell's Dream Boxes

Joseph Cornell was a unique twentieth-century artist best known for his work in assemblage. Winter emphasizes the whimsy of Cornell's tiny enclosed worlds while quietly working in biographical details. Digital illustrations resembling cut paper jibe with the subject matter, as images are combined and assembled (often within neat boxes) on clean pages to enlarge ideas in the spare prose. Bib.

Prolific picture-book biographer Winter here focuses on Joseph Cornell, a unique twentieth-century artist best known for his work in assemblage: "Mr. Cornell didn't draw. Mr. Cornell didn't paint. / Mr. Cornell made shadow boxes with things he found when he roamed the city -- WONDERLANDS covered in glass." The book brings the reader to Utopia Parkway in Queens, New York, "not so long ago." Through descriptive direct-address text ("you might have walked past this house"), it paints a picture of an imaginative man with childlike sensibilities, a man who filled journals with thoughts and wooden boxes with fantasies; a dreamer to whom "remembering was important." Cornell's art is approachable for a young audience, and Winter's simple text runs with that, emphasizing the whimsy of her subject's tiny enclosed worlds while quietly working in biographical details such as the fact that Cornell cared for his brother Robert, who had cerebral palsy. Digital illustrations resembling cut paper jibe with the subject matter, as images are combined and assembled (often within neat boxes) on clean pages to enlarge ideas in the spare prose. A brief author's note, with three archival photographs, tells more about Cornell's life and about Winter's inspiration for the book. katrina hedeen