Suzy's Sun (for Judy Tyler)
Artist
Joseph Cornell
American, 1903–1972
Date1957
MediumBox construction: including wood, glass, plastic, metal, tempera, cork, seashell, and paper
Dimensions10 3/4 x 15 x 4 in. (27.3 x 38.1 x 10.2 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LinePurchased with funds from the State of North Carolina
Object number78.1.1
On View
Not on viewThe sun (a cutout from an antipasto tin) and the sea (an implied presence) speak with eloquent authority of life cycles and passing time. The equally potent symbols of driftwood and an infinitely spiraling seashell readily bring to mind the tides on which they ride, summoning a universal metaphor for the ebb and flow of life itself.
[M. Brooks, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]ProvenanceGift of the artist to niece, Helen Batcheller, n.d.; ACA Galleries, New York, c. 1978; sold to NCMA, 1978.Published ReferencesEdgar Peters Bowron, ed., Introduction to the Collections (Chapel Hill: published for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, by The University of North Carolina Press, 1983), illus. (color) 28.
Introduction to the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1992), illus. (b-w) 272.
Huston Paschal, entry for Suzy's Sun (for Judy Tyler), in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, Rebecca Martin Nagy, ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1998), 228, illus. (color).
Huston Paschal, entry for Suzy's Sun (for Judy Tyler), in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2010), 480, illus. (color) 481.
Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Recent Acquisitions," December 14, 1978-January 28, 1979.
Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–present. Object Rights Statement
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