Discover the Life and Art of Corita Kent

The Life and Art of Corita Kent

• Corita Kent was an American pop artist, designer, and educator, born in 1918 and known for her work on Christianity and social justice.
• She was a former religious sister and a teacher at the Immaculate Heart College, where she taught a wide variety of painting styles and was the head of the art department.
• Kent's primary medium was screen printing, and she became self-taught after sending away for a DIY silk screening kit.
• Her artwork contained her own spiritual expression and love for God, with messages of love and peace that were particularly popular during the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s.
• Due to opposition from Cardinal James McIntyre, the sisters were eventually forced out of their schools in Los Angeles, with the exception of the college, and most of the sisters left the order entirely.
• Kent moved to the East Coast and began to work independently, becoming extremely prolific after a cancer diagnosis in the early 1970s.
• She created the Rainbow Swash design on the LNG storage tank in Boston and the 1985 version of the United States Postal Service's special Love stamp.
• In recent years, Kent has gained increased recognition for her role in the pop art movement, with a resurgence of attention given to her work.
• Kent's style was heavily text-based, with scripture passages or positive quotes often encompassing entire compositions with bold and highly saturated typefaces.
• Her work often incorporated archetypical product brands of American consumerism alongside spiritual texts, and her design process involved appropriating an original advertising graphic to suit her idea.
• Kent's work became increasingly political during the 1960s, addressing events such as the Vietnam War and humanitarian crises, and her use of English church texts in her work made an impact on the Vatican II’s efforts to normalize conducting Mass in English.
• Kent's legacy includes solo exhibitions at the National Museum of Women in the Arts and several art museums, as well as an archive dedicated to her at the Immaculate Heart Community Headquarters in Hollywood, CA, and the Corita Art Center, a gallery and archive dedicated to preserving and promoting her work.