Duchamp Dossier

Currently not on view

Duchamp Dossier

c. 1942-1953

Joseph Cornell (American, 1903–1972)

Cornell’s Duchamp Dossier is a unique archive of objects and ephemera collected by the artist over the course of several years, though mostly during the early 1940s. It documents the friendship between Cornell and Marcel Duchamp through correspondence, magazine articles, and advertisements, and, perhaps most notably, art reproductions and labels that Duchamp created for his own Box and Box in a Valise, (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1994-43-1) editions. In the summer of 1942, when Duchamp returned to the United States from France to avoid World War II, Cornell began to assist him with the production of the Boxes, a collaboration that would last until 1946.

Currently not on view

Object Details

Title:

Duchamp Dossier

Date:

c. 1942-1953

Artist:

Joseph Cornell (American, 1903–1972)

Medium:

Lidded cardboard box containing typed and handwritten notes, letters, and postcards, Photostats, paper, newspaper and magazine clippings, exhibition announcements, printed papers, printed reproductions, and drawings, objects, and readymades by Duchamp and Cornell

Dimensions:

Other (1990-33-1box): 14 1/4 × 12 5/8 × 3 1/8 inches (36.2 × 32.1 × 7.9 cm)

Classification:

Drawings

Credit Line:

Gift of The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, 1990

Accession Number:

1990-33-1(1a,b--118)

Geography:

Made in United States, North and Central America

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Currently not on view