Sister Corita Kent
1918–1986
A Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Corita Kent graduated from Los Angeles’s Immaculate Heart College in 1941 and received a MFA in art history from the University of Southern California in 1951. From 1964 to 1968 she headed the art department at Immaculate Heart College, garnering a progressive reputation for the program. In vibrant serigraphs and screenprints produced during the 1960s and 1970s, Kent demonstrated a deep political and social engagement: a strong antiwar sentiment and equally strong support of the civil rights movement, but also a belief in effective communication and creative pedagogy. Many works from this period incorporate quotations and slogans collected from a range of literary, biblical, and pop culture sources.
Works such as HA demonstrate an interest not only in the meaning of words but in their sound and their shape on the page. HA includes the word LIFE, appropriated from the masthead of the magazine but rendered upside down and in reverse, while the rest of the letters appear distorted. The letters hover between their appearance as abstract shapes and their resolution into recognizable signifiers. Kent cited the modernist architect and designer Charles Eames and the nonfigurative possibilities of Abstract Expressionist painters such as Mark Rothko as influences. The legibility of her prints attracted an audience looking for accessible meaning, Kent explained, but her graphic and colorful style would also introduce them to ideas about form and encourage them to understand the visual message.
