Joseph Cornell, December 24, 1903–December 29, 1972, was an American artist and filmmaker born in Nyack, New York. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover but did not graduate and received no formal artistic training.

Cornell began making collages and assemblages in the early 1930s after encountering Surrealist art at Julien Levy’s New York gallery. He became known for glass-fronted box constructions assembled from found objects and printed ephemera, and he also made experimental films, including Rose Hobart.

Cornell lived and worked for most of his life in Flushing, Queens, where he cared for his mother and his brother Robert. Major holdings of his work are in the Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Menil Collection, Tate and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.