Joseph Cornell / Marcel Duchamp... In Resonance

Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Cantz, 1998. Softcover. VG. Stiff white and illus. wraps, 343 pp, many bw illustrations, some color. Exhibition itinerary: Philadelphia Museum of Art, October 8, 1998--January 3, 1999 and The Menil Collection, Houston, January 22--May 16, 1999. Library Journal review: The expatriate Frenchman Duchamp was cerebral and urbane, while the sheltered Cornell is often portrayed as a poet. Yet they had a real and lasting friendship that sprang from an admiration for each other's work. One record remains of this largely private friendship: the "Duchamp Dossier," a box kept by Cornell and filled with scraps of paper and other fragmentary mementos. That "work" is reproduced here in painstaking detail, its contents spread over 50 pages; in addition, two other large sections of plates present dozens of works by each artist in very fine reproductions. Between these visual gems, five well-researched essays and a chronology explore the relationship and its meanings without forcing connections. Accompanying a show moving from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to Houston's Menil Collection, this catalog sheds new light on two major figures in 20th-century art. For all collections in academic and public libraries interested in 20th-century art. -Douglas McClemont, New York. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.