Omnibus (1967)

Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box (1991x15)

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The American artist and film-maker Joseph Cornell (1903-72) remains the dark horse of modern art, an enigmatic and reclusive cult figure who found fame through the so-called "Cornell Box". In a series of glass-fronted boxes he arranged a number of unrelated objects - everything from toys and photographs to driftwood and pebbles from the beach - to create a three-dimensional fantasy. One of his boxes was sold recently for nearly $500,000. This first TV documentary about Cornell assesses his life and work - with the help of admirers Tony Curtis and Susan Sontag - and paints an illuminating portrait of the hidden world of the man whose modest studio became a place of pilgrimage for the likes of Andy Warhol, John Lennon, and Max Ernst. He lived in the basement of a house he shared with his mother and brother (a victim of cerebral palsy).