Cornell created poetic, intensely personal assemblages of everyday objects that often have a complex iconography based on the artist’s diverse interests, which ranged from astronomy to ballet. Constructed from cordial glasses, marbles, and a cork ball, The Birth of the Nuclear Atom refers to the orbit of neutrons, protons, and electrons. Crafted during the Cold War, the box also connotes the destructive power of the atom bomb.

Cornell lived most of his life in his family’s home in Queens, New York. Although he was a veritable recluse, in the 1950s and 1960s artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol saw Cornell as a kindred spirit and made pilgrimages to meet him. Like them, Cornell created meaningful objects from the detritus of American consumer and popular culture.