Art Institute of Chicago

Untitled (Sand Box)

Joseph Cornell · c. 1944

Provenance

Ownership history

The artist, New York; sold to Mary Reynolds (1891-1950), New York and later Paris, by June 1945 [Philadelphia 1998]; by descent to her brother, Frank B. Hubachek (1894-1986), Glencoe, IL, 1950; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1951.

Recorded by Art Institute of Chicago.

Exhibitions

Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cornell in Chicago, Nov. 17, 1973–Jan. 6, 1974, as Surrealist Box, unnumbered cat.
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Joseph Cornell, Nov. 17, 1980–Jan. 20, 1981, cat. S–21; London, Whitechapel Gallery, Mar. 2–Apr. 12, 1981; Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle, May 4–June 14, 1981; Florence, Palazzo Pitti, July 6–Sept. 13, 1981; Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Jan. 30–Mar. 28, 1982, as Surrealist Box (Chicago only).
Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris: A Friendship with Mary Reynolds, Mar. 29–July 13, 2025, fig. 84.

Literature

Museum of Contemporary Art, Cornell in Chicago, Nov. 17, 1973-Jan. 6, 1974, exh. brochure, n.p., unnumbered cat. (not ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Joseph Cornell, Jan. 30-Mar. 28, 1982, n.p., cat. S-21, as Surrealist Box.
Polly Koch, ed., Joseph Cornell/Marcel Duchamp... In Resonance, exh. cat. (Philadelphia and Houston: Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Menil Collection, 1998), cat. 88, 206 (color ill.), 336.
Janine Mileaf, Please Touch: Dada and Surrealist Objects After the Readymade (Hanover, NH and London: Dartmouth College Press, 2010), n.p., pl. 22 (color ill.), as Untitled (Sand Box), c. 1944.
Caitlin Haskell, ed., with Tamar Kharatishvili and Alivé Piliado Santana, Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris: A Friendship with Mary Reynolds (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2025), 84, fig. 84 (color ill.), as Untitled (Sand Box), about 1944.

Comparables