The Schooner

collage by Cornell

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July 21, 2026

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The Schooner is an early collage created by American artist Joseph Cornell in 1931. Cornell was a pioneer of assemblage art, known for his shadow boxes, collages, and films. He began creating collages using illustrations cut from old books, influenced by Surrealist artists. The Schooner features a ship at sea, with a rose containing a spider on a spiderweb integrated into one of the ship's sails. This work was inspired by Max Ernst's collage-novel La Femme 100 têtes. Cornell's collages, like his shadow boxes, often contained enigmatic and poetic juxtapositions of found materials.12

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Joseph Cornell
…earliest extant collage, known as The Schooner (1931), is a small image of a ship at sea with a rose containing a spider on a spiderweb as one part of the ship’s sails. Those early works were inspired by Ernst’s collage-novel La Femme 100 têtes (1929; The Hundred Headless Woman),…
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…earliest extant collage, known as The Schooner (1931), is a small image of a ship at sea with a rose containing a spider on a spiderweb as one part of the ship’s sails. Those early works were inspired by Ernst’s collage-novel La Femme 100 têtes (1929; The Hundred Headless Woman),…
Read More