Untitled (To Joseph Cornell)

The rectangular format of this work echoes the shape of one of its primary collage elements: a standard-sized paper envelope addressed in Ray Johnson’s hand to fellow American artist Joseph Cornell. Johnson first wrote to Cornell, who was 24 years his senior, in 1966, and the two artists began corresponding regularly the following year. Their friendship may have grown out of several shared interests; both mined the poetic potential of juxtaposed images in their collage constructions, and both drew inspiration from their relationships to others—friends as well as those they aspired to know. Much like Cornell, who lived in Flushing, Queens, in New York City, Johnson withdrew from Manhattan in 1968 to Glen Cove on Long Island, residing in what he described as “an old white farmhouse with a Joseph Cornell attic.” In Untitled (To Joseph Cornell), Johnson references the elder artist with the image of a bird, the celestial black frame (both frequent Cornell motifs), and the silhouetted profile of the artist at left. More subtly, Johnson alludes to Cornell’s birthdate, and favorite holiday, Christmas Eve, through his abundant use of red and green.