The "boxes" and collages constructed by Joseph Cornell (1903–72) are among the most intriguing and beguiling works of art made this century. Old toys, photos, magazine illustrations, bits of electrical wiring – anything in fact more usually left to molder in lumber rooms or junkshops – were hoarded by him as the elemental materials he needed for his constructions. The finished works are visually entrancing, but the intensely personal webs of reverie and association that determined their content make these boxes at once both oddly familiar yet ineluctably strange. Drawing on the widest range possible of primary material – virtually all Cornell's scrapbooks and source files, as well as correspondence and diaries – supplemented by further details gathered during more than fifty interviews undertaken with the artist's family and acquaintances, including Robert Motherwell and Susan Sontag, Lindsay Blair gives us the most detailed picture yet of an artist who hid so much of his life from the world. Her conclusion, wholly convincing in the light of the evidence she provides, is that Cornell's ultimate subject was the mind itself.

Between 1953 and 1966, New York assemblage artist Joseph Cornell created more than twenty works in homage to Juan Gris, specifically inspired by the Cubist’s collage masterpiece, The Man at the Café(1914). Cornell’s Gris boxes have as their centerpiece the image of a bird, the great white-crested cockatoo, whose delightful and erudite connections to the Cubist’s oeuvre and to Cornell’s own hobbies, love of music, and distinctive approach to modern art are comprehensively documented here for the first time.

Dimensions is the annual, student-produced journal of architecture at the University of Michigan. It seeks to contribute to the critical discourse of architectural education by documenting the most compelling work produced by its students, faculty, fellows, and visiting lecturers.

Following his English edition of Alma Mahler-Werfel's Diaries 1898-1902, Antony Beaumont presents both the first comprehensive biography of the composer and conductor Alexander Zemlinsky (1871-1942) and a critical assessment of his works. "Zemlinsky--all hail to you!" wrote the young Alma. "All hail to you and your art." When she first met him, Zemlinsky was the most promising Viennese composer of his generation. In 1901, when Alma abruptly ended their passionate love affair in order to marry Gustav Mahler, the crisis served to transform Zemlinsky's talent into mastery. Only long after his death, however, did his music begin to receive its due. Zemlinsky was central to the musical life of Vienna and Central Europe, and this brilliant biography illuminates a social and cultural milieu that disappeared forever with the triumph of Hitler's Reich. The author details the composer's early years as a protégé of Brahms and Mahler, his complex friendship with his brother-in-law Arnold Schoenberg, the influence of his teaching on the boy-prodigy Erich Korngold, his kindly and helpful attitude toward the hypersensitive Anton Webern, and his heartfelt friendship with Alban Berg. Zemlinsky was one of the leading conductors of the interwar period, considered by both Schoenberg and Stravinsky the finest they had ever heard. The author charts Zemlinsky's career from Vienna to Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Prague, providing insight into his Catholic-Sephardic background and investigating his keen interest in esoteric aspects of music, including color symbolism and numerology. The author's analyses of Zemlinsky's major scores are accessible and fully contextualized.

Joseph Cornell and Astronomy provides an in-depth look at one artist's intense fascination with the science of astronomy. Joseph Cornell (1903-72) has often been viewed as a recluse, isolated in his home on Utopia Parkway, lost in the fairy tales and charming objects of his collages and assemblage boxes. Less commonly known has been Cornell's vested and serious interest in the history of astronomy and the cutting-edge discoveries made during his own lifetime. An avid reader, he amassed a library of books and articles about science and astronomy, and his reflections about these subjects had a direct impact on his art. This book explores why astronomy captivated Cornell, and considers hundreds of his works--found-footage films, three-dimensional space-object boxes, enigmatic collages, and cosmic ephemera--that contain references to astronomical phenomena. Kirsten Hoving considers Cornell's enormous collection of astronomy materials, ranging from eighteenth-century books to recent works; newspaper and magazine articles that Cornell clipped and sorted; and diary entries of his observations while stargazing in his backyard. She examines how Cornell explored many dimensions of astronomy through his identities as a Christian Scientist and surrealist artist. Unfolding Cornell's work with depth and breadth, Joseph Cornell and Astronomy offers a convincing and original appreciation of this intriguing American artist.