About

While best known for his boxed assemblages, Joseph Cornell was also a pioneer of collage films made with old 16mm film prints. His first film wasRose Hobart c.1936, created by editing together sequences from George Melford's melodrama East of Borneo 1931. Cornell's rough and disconcerting montage focuses on the expressions and gestures of the film's star whose screen name also provides the work's title. On the rare occasion that the film was screened during Cornell's life, it was projected through a blue glass filter (subsequent archival prints are tinted a rose red) and accompanied by Nestor Amaral's samba composition 'Holiday in Brazil' played on a record player. It was first screened at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1936 where Salvador Dalí reportedly kicked over the 16mm projector and accusing Cornell stealing the idea from his subconscious.