A mixed media sculpture.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

The parts of the sculpture are contained in a black framed, rectangular, three-sided box. Small squared wire mesh, painted white, frames the top and left edges. A white round column extends from top to bottom on the right. The back is white with a cracked surface with an inset black rectangle on the left side. A portion of the constellation of Pegasus is in the upper right corner.

Gallery Text

Like the surrealist montages of Max Ernst and the readymades of Marcel Duchamp (manufactured objects presented as art), Joseph Cornell’s unique box constructions juxtapose recognizable but unrelated objects. The objects retain their individual meaning while transforming the composition into a fusion of mysterious, unsettling associations. Linked with surrealism and inspired by cubist collage, Cornell was perhaps most influenced by his experience of life in New York. Midnight Carrousel references a number of his passions: the winter night sky, the starry ceilings of Grand Central Terminal, a Victorian-era carrousel in Central Park, and engraved charts of the constellations. Cornell’s box engages time, space, and motion, connecting the centrifugal movement of a childhood ride with the stars that spin above, and offering an escape into the celestial realm while acknowledging the dawn of the atomic age. His allusions to the metaphysics of time, and the rough-worked surfaces of the box’s frame, express a nostalgia that is evocative yet impenetrable.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1996.33
People
Joseph Cornell, American (Nyack, NY 1903 - 1972 New York, NY)
Title
Midnight Carrousel
Other Titles
Alternate Title: Winter Night Sky
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture
Date
1954
Places
Creation Place: North America, United States
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/232240

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1310, Modern and Contemporary Art, Surrealism
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Assemblage, mixed media
Dimensions
35.56 x 27.94 x 16.51 cm (14 x 11 x 6 1/2 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Lois Orswell, from the artist?, Gift to Harvard University Art Museums, 1996.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Lois Orswell
Copyright
© The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Accession Year
1996
Object Number
1996.33
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Marjorie B. Cohn and Sarah Kianovsky, Lois Orswell, David Smith, and Modern Art, exh. cat., Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2002), cat. no. 23, fig. 66, pp. 133-134, 312, 375

Exhibition History

  • Annual Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture, Watercolors and Drawings, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 01/12/1955 - 02/20/1955
  • [Benefit exhibition for the Boston Arts Festival], Margaret Brown Gallery, Boston, 05/08/1956 - 05/29/1956
  • Lois Orswell, David Smith, and Modern Art, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/21/2002 - 02/16/2003
  • Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, 04/28/2007 - 08/19/2007
  • 32Q: 1310 Surrealism, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu