Seen in the Mirror: Things from the Cartin Collection

“I first noticed a Joseph Cornell shadow box at the Wadsworth Atheneum in the 1970’s, when I knew absolutely nothing about the artist. It was first presented by Cornell to the Atheneum’s legendary director Everett “Chick” Austin in the early 1930’s as a table-top still life composed of various mysterious elements and Austin passed. Cornell returned with the same elements arranged in a box—his very first—and Austin acquired it. This came at a time before the war when Austin, armed with the funds if not always the confidence of the of the very wealthy insurance industry founders and heirs on "his” board, would make annual summer trips to Europe to buy for the museum in my hometown. He returned with for example, Caravaggio’s great St. Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, 1595, a magnificent Fra Angelico Gold ground in 1928, and Cranach’s magnificent The Feast of Herod, 1531. In that same moment he acquired Mondrian’s Composition in Blue and White, 1935. So... Fra Angelico to Mondrian…Caravaggio to Cornell. I didn’t realize until much later how important it was to look at everything, and my curiosity never let me down. I’m still looking at everything.”

—Mickey Cartin, 2021