The Easel

Archives: Sarah Lea

24th February 2026

Between Worlds: Visitors to 37-08 Utopia Parkway

Cornell’s studio has been re-created in a Paris gallery, bringing many reminiscences of this unusual artist. He lived in suburban New York and dreamed of travelling to Paris. His collages, box assemblages and films were made with materials from bric-a-brac stores. Inspired by surrealism his boxes are exercises in “urban reverie”. Despite friendships with many notable artists, he was a loner – or as a friend called him, a monk. Says a curator, Cornell was “born on the wrong continent at the wrong time”.