Joseph Cornell Original Scrapbook for Tamara Toumanova

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Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell Original Scrapbook for Tamara Toumanova
1953

About the Item

Illustrated with 10 original Cornell collages interleaved in coloured and textured papers, constructed of black and white photographs, feathers, fabric from Toumanova's costumes, tulle, plastic, coloured paper, rhinestones, string, etc. Housed in original red-coloured ringbinder with collaged covers by Cornell. Folio, 285 x 230 mm, (exterior measurement of notebook 11 x 9 inches). New York: ca. 1953. Original Collage Scrapbook on Russian ballet star Tamara Toumanova, constructed by Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) in the early 1950s. Ballet was central to both the life and the work of Joseph Cornell. Until the time of his first encounter with Toumanova in 1940, his main preoccupation was with the Romantic ballet. However, once he came under her spell she occupied the main focus of his balletomania for the next thirty years. "The two ballerinas who made the greatest imprint on Cornell's work were Fanny Cerrito [1817-1909] and Tamara Toumanova [1919-1996]. They were his first loves in the ballet, making their entry into his life within a few months of each other, Cerrito in the summer of 1940, Toumanova in the winter of the same year." (Starr, Joseph Cornell and the Ballet, p. 59). Cornell was a frequent visitor to Toumanova's dressing room during the time she danced at the Metropolitan Opera House and for the George Balanchine Company. After Toumanova departed for Hollywood, she and Cornell entered into a lengthy correspondence and the artist presented Toumanova with several of his art works, one being the present album. In all, Cornell constructed over twenty objects of various sorts all inspired by Toumanova and her ballet creations. There were scrapbooks, souvenir cases, classic Cornell boxes, make-up trays, decorated hand-mirrors, etc., each incorporating scenes and objects from her work in Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and Romeo and Juliet. As Sandra Starr has pointed out, even though she was a living ballerina, as opposed to the dead ones he had previously focused on, Cornell's interest in Toumanova centered on her roles in nineteenth-century ballets and much less on the modern works in which she danced for Balanchine. Original Cornell construction of ten collages on a personal subject close to the artist's heart. With a splendid provenance, beginning with the subject of the construction, Tamara Toumanova herself. Then to the great Cornell collectors, Lindy and Edwin Bergman. Minor signs of wear to extremities of binder, a few leaves with edge wear. PROVENANCE: Tamara Toumanova, who acquired the notebook as a gift from the artist, thence to the Bergman Collection, acquired in 1981; Private Collection. Exhibited: 1.) New York, The Museum of Modern Art and Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, Joseph Cornell, January-March 1982 (this work exhibited only at the Art Institute of Chicago). 2.) Washington, D.C., National Museum of American Art, Joseph Cornell: An Exploration of Sources, November 1982-February 1983. 3.) Art Institute of Chicago, The Lindy and Edwin Bergman Joseph Cornell Collection, June 1983-October 1989. 4.) Washington, D.C., Smithsonian American Museum of Art; Salem, MA, Peabody Essex Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination, November 2006-January 2008, pp. 282-283, cat. no. 130 (illustrated in colour). References: See, Sandra Leonard Starr, Joseph Cornell and the Ballet, Castelli, 1983, esp. pp. 59-70.

Creator:
Joseph Cornell (1903-1972, American)
Creation Year:
1953
Dimensions:
Height: 11 in (27.94 cm)Width: 9 in (22.86 cm)Depth: 1 in (2.54 cm)
Movement & Style:
American Modern
Period:
1950-1959
Condition:
Minor signs of wear to extremities of binder, a few leaves with edge wear.
Gallery Location:
New York, NY
Reference Number:
Seller: 1578681stDibs: LU43831477213