Physical Description:
146 items
(33 letters in 34 folders, 1 painted wood box)
Arrangement
Arranged chronologically.
Scope and Content Note
Included are thirty-three postmarked letters sent by Joseph Cornell from his house in Flushing, Queens, to Susanna De Maria
Wilson at her various addresses in New York City. The letters begin in 1963 and continue until 1968, but the prevalent portion,
about half of the letters, dates from 1963.
In addition to Cornell's letters to De Maria Wilson, the postmarked envelopes also contain other items such as notes, greeting
cards, or clippings from magazines, which are often inserted in smaller envelopes, wrapped in tissue paper, stiched or clipped
together. Frequently, these items are collaged with stamps, seals, foil stickers, and small photographs. Several small objects
are included: a bird call whistle, pressed grass, a plastic toy mirror, a piece of perforated metal, and rusty nails.
As stated in the first letter (21 January 1963), Cornell had met De Maria Wilson in the spring of 1962, when the latter was
working at MoMA, but did not write her until the start of the following year. The letters document diverse aspects of Cornell's
and De Maria Wilson's working relationship. De Maria Wilson was given the task of helping acquire source material for Cornell's
collage and assemblage work, and the letters frequently contain directions on where to go, guidance as to what kind of imagery
particularly appealed to him, and even samples of images. Sometimes, the letters are purely social in purpose, as in an Easter
card sent on 13 April 1963, or in a postcard dated 15 April 1964, thanking her for perfumes. Cornell also shared insight into
various aspects of his thought and collage processes. For instance, in a letter dated 28 March 1963, Cornell discusses the
mystery of sylphs and sensuality, and in a letter from 5 April 1963 he wrote a lengthy note discussing three dreams. Throughout,
the writing is typical of the artist's allusive and laconic style, but there are also surprising moments of humor, as in the
humorous card sent on 23 May 1964.
Just important as the discursive or textual content of the letters is their aesthetic composition. The pieces of mail are
generally strongly visual in their orientation, and even the more mundane-seeming of the letters and postcards appear to have
had stamps affixed with care and for deliberate effect. Many include collaged elements and objects. At times, this could consist
simply of the addition of stickers or the pasting on of a cut-out image, but there are also sumptuous demonstrations of Cornell's
artistry, as in the collage bouquet of pressed grasses and angels included in an envelope stamped 13 February 1964.
Furthermore, Cornell adapted the collage and assemblage technique to the more temporally ordered sequential mode of reading
in the epistolary format, so that any given piece frequently contains multiple envelopes that are then wrapped in tissue paper,
stitched or clipped together, producing a layered reading and viewing experience. In short, the letters as a group exist as
much as a collection of work on paper or mail art by Cornell as they are an archive of documents.
Included with this series is the painted wood box in which De Maria Wilson stored Cornell's letters at her home. Cornell saw
the box in a Manhattan store and asked DeMaria Wilson to purchase it with money he gave her.
In the following descriptions of the letters the name of the addressee is transcribed documenting the various ways Susanna
De Maria Wilson was adressed by Cornell.
